







**'\ 











/%.. 















.V'">^..^.^"-"-^ ---^ 
















^^^ 6^ .•jj'*. % " -*^' 




,»• •, 










5 *ca 




**'** 






^o 





tvT* .'S 



^^'•^^ 




« 0^ ^ • • • • < 



'fJ^ 










'«. c>" •^^SSSSi*. '•^ ^^' *>Wa:^ '^^^ > >*^ii^v '"^..^" 












^^^ *• 

^ 



•^b 






%;^^V^^ "%/^^\^^^ \J'^^'/ "V*^ 

fe\ %.^^ /jsM/^^ \.4^ /^bi\ %..^^ /j^£\\.J 








^ ^^. 



^ %> *; 






./X 



*' ^^ 













^o^S^ 




















A 



DISCOURSE ON SLAVERY 



DELIVEKED nEFORE 



THE ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY IN LITTLETON, N. H. 



f^EBRUARY 22, 1839, 



BEING THE 



[mmf^etrsi^^tf® M tM M^HU M i^ii*ami5ilaiw< 



BY W. D. WILSON. 



" He whom God moves to speak, expresses himself ipenly and freely, careless whether he 
be alone or has others on his side." — Martin Luther. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 



J^^^C^^^., 



U. S. A. 



e:oncotti : 
PRINTED BY ASA McFARLAND, 

Opposite the State House. 

1839. 



PREFATORY NOTE. 

I have not thought it best to encumber the pages of this discourse with references to 
authorities, either in the text or in marginal notes. Tiie principal autlioritles, beside the few 
references in the page where the quotation occurs are, the Bible, Jahn's Arclifeology, Eschen- 
burg's Manual of Classical Literature, Bancroft's United States, Kent's Commentaries, and 
Jay's Inquiry. VV. D. W. 



DISCOURSE. 



^:| Mr. President afid Gentlemen : 

I accept with pleasure the invitation you have been pleased to give 
me, to come up here and speak to you at this time on the subject of 
human slavery. The birth-day of Washington brings with it, to every 
lover of freedom, and especially to every freeman of America, associa- 
tions calculated to awaken in his bosom the noblest and holiest emo- 
tions. The recollections of a man great, almost beyond human weak- 
ness, a nation's father and idol, who had been their pillar of fire by 
night and of cloud by day, to guide them during their long and peril- 
ous struggle for liberty, and who, when that struggle was ended, 
planned and reared a form of government to which all eyes are turned 
in admiration, and on which the trembling hopes of the world yet hang, 
till they may see if it be not too like heaven to be long realized here 
on earth, seem to call us forth from the homely routine of every day 
thought and feeling, to set apart this hour to the entertainment of holier 
and nobler emotions. When we think of him whose life and energies 
were spent in the cause of human freedom, without a taint of selfish- 
ness, avarice or ambition, but who even refused the emoluments and 
power that the fond idolatry of the people he had served would gladly 
have given him, we seem to shut our eyes upon the avarice, corruption 
and oppression that is around us, and for a while persuade ourselves 
that it is not so. It cannot be that a nation, before whose eyes has 
been displayed so much greatness, such purity, such devotion to the 
cause of man, should still rob three millions of their fellow-men of 
their dearest rights. It cannot be that men made of the same clay, 
and in the same image with Washington, can be so unlike him as to 
hear calmly the chains of the slave clank upon their native soil, and 
in their own dwellings ; the bread of a soil watered by the tears and 
blood of slaves catmot^be sweet to their mouths ; the shrieks and groans 
of the chain-galled African cannot be music to their ears. But, alas ! 
it is so ; it is no dream. Oh ! that it were. 

It does seem that the mention of human slavery in connection with 
the name of Washington would be enough to make any man an abo- 
litionist. It does seem that the thought of three millions of slaves in 
our own country, occurring amidst the thoughts and feelings inspired 
by this day and occasion, would be enough to call every heart aud hand 
to the assistance of the oppressed. It does seem that every apology 
for slavery, and every plea or excuse for its continuance, must shrink 



with shame from that mind where the thought of Washington is. 
" What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness ? What 
communion hath hght with darkness ? And what concord hath Christ 
with BeHal," or Washington with Slavery ? No; that mind through 
which recollections of Washington are passing is too much purified by 
their sacred presence to harbor a thought of continuing slavery. 

Let us then seize this auspicious moment to examine the subject of 
human slavery. Let us direct the thoughts suggested by the recur- 
rence of an anniversary so dear to freedom to the cause of those who pine 
in bondage and servitude. It will be well to bring the subject of sla- 
very into our minds at this time, and look at it as it lies beneath the 
blaze of glory shining there from Washington's life and character. It 
will be well for us to look at it from a [joint of view so elevated as that 
to which the recollections of Washington can carry us, and with minds 
purified and eni!ol)led by their sanctifying influence. 

I ought to say in the outset, that I do not come here as the organ of 
the Anti-Slavery Society. I have not stretched my views upon the 
Procrustes-bed of any society, or any man. I have scanned my lan- 
guage by no measure but that of my own thoughts and feelings. It is 
but justice to myself and to the abolitionists to say, that they are not 
responsible for any thing I may say, nor am I for any of their doctrines 
or measures. I oxi;ect, as a matter of course, that the views I am 
about to offer will coincide with theirs. But I have not sought such a 
coincidence. My only aim has been to be the mouth-piece of Truth 
and Justice. Truth is one ; and all who seek it will agree if they seek 
aright. The dictates of justice are identical, and the same to all men who 
will hear with reverence ; therefore it is that my views coincide v/ith 
the views of the abolitionists, in the main ; and I do not see how any 
man can hold up his head in this enlightened, liberty-loving country, 
and dissent from them. That man must be awfully depraved, and 
awfully unconscious of his depravity, who can in this age apologize for 
slavery. How much worse is the case of him who objects to having 
the subject thought of and discussed in public ! What but unright- 
eousness shuns the light ? Who are they that love darkness rather 
than light ? and why ? 

There is a numerous and daily increasing party, who have professed 
to take the part of the slave ; and while I can see nothing to dissent 
from in their principles, and while I believe their cause to be the cause 
of justice and truth, I dare not withhold my assistance. There may 
be something in their measures to disapprove of: there may be some- 
thing uncharitable, undignified and unchristian, and unworthy so noble 
a cause. But they are men and not angels. They have a nobleness 
of principle at bottom that gives them unwavering confidence. It gives 
them a boldness that leads to those very measures that call forth disap- 
probation. It will make them irresistible and triumphant over all the 
opposition they may meet with. They plant themselves upon the 
eternal principles of Truth and Justice ; and though they may sometimes 
fight with unlawful weapons, still the cause of humanity, which they 
have espoused, will give them a mouth and wisdom that all their ad- 



versaries shall not be able to gainsay or resist. They appeal to the 
hearts and consciences of men, and their words go to the hearts and 
consciences, and stir the depths of the soul ; while those who oppose 
them address the cupidity and fears of men, by portraying the evils 
which they /ear may come from emancipation. 

There is no case, perhaps, in which the superiority of the heart over 
calculation, of conscience and principle over cupidity and seeming 
expediency, is so manifest as in the case of the abolitionists. Let an 
apologist for slavery get up and portray all the profits of slavery, all the 
difficulties and hindrances in the way of emancipation, and the evils of 
it when it shall have come, in all the eloquence his subject can com- 
mand, and it will be sufficient to do away the effect of all that he can 
say, to have a person whose heart swells with humanity and love, ad- 
dress the higher sentiments and appeal to the consciences of men in 
favor of the oppressed. He will arouse them from the slumber into 
which the apologist for slavery would rock their consciences, that so 
the lower nature may rule the man. He will raise them above all 
the fears, and cupidity, and love of ease, which the slave-holder would 
address in pleading for the continuance of slavery. All that is or can 
be said against emancipation is like fuel to the fire. It reveals more of 
those very evils that called forth tlie abolition enterprize. The motives 
which are urged for the continuance of slavery, and the considerations 
by which the appeals of the abolitionists are met, are like stone walls 
to stop the birds. An abolitionist will arise, and by appealing to the 
higher nature, he will raise them at once above all the considerations 
of avarice. He is able, by the eloquence with which his subject 
inspires him, to soar with them above all that the opponent of freedom 
can present, and carry them over all the mountain difficulties that make 
the foot path to the desired land of liberty impassable. It is only 
when one is tired, or lazy, or drunk, that he hits his foot against the ine- 
qualities of the road and falls ; but let there come over his heart some 
all-engrossing enterprize, and he moves on unimpeded by those very 
banks against which he was just before stumbling. Let a man be ani- 
mated by some ennobling sentiment, and the difficulties in the way of 
attaining his object disappear, or even become advantages. It is the 
slothful man only, or the self-interested, that sees a lion in the way. 
The cause of humanity does thus engross and animate. It is the glory 
and the recommendation of the abolition principles that they can and 
do raise men above the stumbling stones in the way of the stupid and 
thoughtless ; that they can and do raise men above avarice, conserva- 
tism and an indolent fear of consequences. I know that this fact is 
regarded by many as a proof of fanaticism in the abolitionists. I do 
not know what men mean to insinuate by calling the abolitionists fa- 
natics ; I simply know that it is the nature of truth and justice to make 
what the sober, calculating, ease-loving votaries of ' Expediency' call 
fanatics, especially if they are opposed. The river that runs quietly 
and noiselessly when undisturbed, becomes the thundering cataract only 
when it is provoked by the rocks and dams that obstruct its coiu'se. 
This state of the case and these considerations prove to him who 



can road tlic signs of the times, and discern what the spirit meaneth, 
two most important things in regard to the snbject : 

1. It proves the righteousness of the cause of the abohtionists ; inas- 
much as it succeeds by appeahng to the conscience and the higher senti- 
ments, while those who oppose it appeal to something much lower, as 
conservatism, avarice, or a selfish fear of consequences. 

2. It proves also that it must and will succeed. Those who oppose 
it succeed only so long as they can belittle people, chill them and keep 
them in the dark. But the abolitionists ennoble and warm men, by 
calling out the magnanimous sentiments of love and justice. They 
sjn-ead abroad a light that reveals the dark recesses of cruelty, crime 
and pollution. They make men feel that there is something more im- 
portant than money, personal gratification, or safety even, when bought 
at the cost of innocence and righteousness. 

With these prefatory remarks upon the nature and prospects of the 
abolition enterprize, I enter upon the great subject. 

I. When we consider what man is, and his relation to the universe 
in which he lives, it does not seem wonderful that slavery should have 
originated early, and have extended to all countries. There is, however, 
one exception, according to Bancroft, to the universal prevalence of 
human slavery. Slavery and the slave trade have not been known in 
Australasia. Slavery grew out of man's indisposition to work. 

Here is man, a being that must be clothed and fed. But the earth 
will not bring forth its ])roducts spontaneously. Man must toil and 
cultivate it before it will satisfy all of his demands. But man is indis- 
posed to labor, especially in southern latitudes, where the human race 
began its career. Those who had cunning enough to persuade their 
neighbors to work for them, and let them be idle, would do so. When 
men congregated into tribes it was found necessary to have some one 
for a leader and lawgiver, or judge, as he was usually called. He and 
a few of his friends, whom he would naturally associate with him in 
his authority and privileges, would naturally and almost necessarily be 
exempted from all the drudgery of maijual labor. His successors would 
feel disposed to enjoy and increase, if they could, the privileges and im- 
munities of their ancestors. Feelings of equality have given place to 
those of aristocracy. Gradually the laborers or servants come to feel 
almost as a part of the master's property. Foreign danger helped to 
tighten the bonds that bound the servant to his master. The servant 
would feel that he owed his protection to his master, and therefore he 
must be obedient and faithful. Here is the patriarchal institution. 

But the servants did not like to work any better than the masters. 
Enmity would naturally arise between the difi'erent tribes, as they came 
in contact with one another. The tribes would go to war with one 
another. They would naturally feel that they had as good right to 
kill their fellow men who injured them as they had to kill wild beasts 
of which they knew and cared about as much as they did of the men 
of another tribe. If, then, it was right to kill them, they would naturally 
suppose that if they saved them alive they were the rightful property 
of their captors. The captor might put him to do liis work and let 



hiiii enjoy his ease, or he might sell him or do what he pleased. The 
captive was his property. 

It cannot be doubted that powerful tribes would encourage war, and 
perhaps enter into it expressly for the sake of making slaves, either for 
their own use or as an article of merchandize, after they had begun to 
have commercial relations with one another. Here is the origin of 
slavery, jiroperly so called. 

By slavery I mean involuntary servitude. Slavery does not consist 
in laboring without pay, or in being confined and subjected to anoth- 
er's will merely. Neither does it consist in the cruelties of the situa- 
tion. But it consists in servitude to which one is subjected without 
consent or crime ; which is consent when the known penalty is im- 
prisonment and servitude. Hence tliere may be many whose condition 
is as bad as slavery who are yet no slaves. It will be well to keep 
this definition of slavery in view. 

Let ns now take a short historical survey of slavery, as it existed in 
the principal nations of antiquity. We must never lose sight of the 
fact that the slaves of ancient times were the captives taken in war. 
A nation made slaves of its equals and sometimes superiors. Sla- 
very was the event of what was considered honorable and lawful 
war. There was no man-stealing, no kidnapping one race under the pre- 
tence that they were made inferiors for the purpose of being slaves to 
their superior. This doctrine is of comparatively modern invention. 

Among the Hebrews, Moses was obliged to permit many things that 
were not so from the beginning, in consequence of the hardness of their 
hearts, and which he no doubt disapproved of. The Jews were a stiff- 
necked people, and by no means plastic and submissive in the hands of 
their legislator. He found it more than he could do to secure obedi- 
ence to a system of religion and a form of government so much better 
than that of any people around them, without aiming at perfection. He 
must suffer them in many things, in consequence of the hardness of 
their hearts. 

There were two kinds of servants among the Hebrews. 

1. The first class of servants, or slaves, (for the same word is used in 
the Hebrew language for both, as they stand in our Bible,) were He- 
brews who had by some means or other reduced themselves to bond- 
age. A Hebrew might fall into slavery in various ways: (a) If 
reduced to extreme poverty he might sell himself: (b) A father might 
sell his children for slaves : (o) Insolvent debtors might be delivered 
to their creditors as slaves : (a) Thieves who were not able to make 
the required restitution for their thefts, were sold into slavery. 

It is extremely difficult to ascertain in many cases whether a law 
was intended for Hebrew servants, or for those who were captives. 
There was, however, this one distinction. At the end of seven years 
the Hebrew servants might go free. If, however, one chose to remain 
with his master, he might declare this choice in the presence of the 
judges, and the master would bore a hole through his ears, and he must 
remain with him forever. But this forever was probably only until 
the year of jubilee, which might not be more than one year, and could 
not be more than forty-three. 



2. The second class of servants, or slaves, were those who had been 
taken in war. Their condition was probably worse than that of the 
former class. These, and their children after them, were slaves until 
death. The master was obliged to circumcise them and teach them 
his religion. If the master injured the slave in eye or tooth, or any 
member whatsoever, the servant, in consequence of such injury, was 
entitled to his freedom. Any slave who had run away from another 
nation and sought refuge among them, was not to be given up, but must 
be treated kindly. 

Says Stevens, (Travels in Egypt, Arabia Petrea and the Holy Land, 
vol. 1, p. 77 :) "■ In the east slavery exists now precisely as it did in 
the days of the patriarchs. The slave is received into the family of a 
Turk in a relation more confidential and respectable than that of an 
ordinary domestic, and when liberated, which very often happens, 
stands upon the same footing with a freeman. The curse does not 
rest upon him forever ; he may sit at the same board, dip his hand in 
the same dish, and if there are no other impediments, may marry his 
master's daughter." 

Such was the slavery that Moses was obliged to permit to the He- 
brews. How difterent from the slavery on our southern plantations ! 
The slave there has no protection that the horse and ox have not, except 
when a murder can be proved by white men's testimony. No black 
man can be heard, and the blacks are usually the only witnesses of the 
cruelty. If the slave escape from bondage in one state, the citizens 
among whom he has sought refuge have bound themselves to return 
him if he be claimed by his master. But among the Jews the law was, 
" Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped 
from his master unto thee : he shall dwell among thee, even among you 
in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh 
him best : thou shalt not oppress him." (Dent, xxiii. 15, 16.) The 
Jewish servant whose master had maimed him could receive his free- 
dom for his wrong. But here he must drag out a miserable life, unless 
the master, more from considerations of profit than of mercy, end his life 
at once. The slave can get no redress, no comfort. The slave of the 
Turk, the follower of Mahomet ' the Impostor,' (?) can sit at the same 
board, dip his hand in the same dish with his master' — 'he can marry 
his master's daughter,' and become as son instead of a servant, but the 
slaves of the Americans, the citizens of this christian democratic repub- 
lic, " shall be deemed, held, taken, reputed and adjudged, in law, to 
be chattels personal, in the hands of their owners and possessors, exec- 
utors, administrators and assigns, to all intents, constructions and pur- 
poses whatsoever.'''' (S. Carolina Laws.) "He can do nothing, pos- 
sess nothing, nor acquire anything but what must belong to his mas- 
ter." (Louisiana Laws.) The Jewish slave must be taught the Jew- 
ish rehgion ; but the slaves in this christian country are, in the lan- 
guage of the slaveholders themselves, ' a nation of heathen in our very 
midst, without God and without hope in the world,' and this too in 
consequence of the laws of the land. 

Among the Greeks the character of slavery became still worse. Their 



slaves were prisoners of war. They were seldom allowed to marry, so 
that very few were born into slavery. They carried on the whole 
business of the Athenians. They were their merchants and mechanics 
as well as cultivators of the soil. Many were skilful in the fine arts 
of sculpture and painting, and even well versed in letters. Some of 
the greatest names that have come down to us arc the names of slaves, 
or freedmen, such as Epictetus and ^sop. Slaves often obtained their 
freedom. The courts were open to them. They could bring actions 
against their masters, and were allowed to testify against them in their 
courts. When they were oppressed, they could always flee to the Tem- 
ple of Theseus, where they were free from the master's cruelty and 
tyranny. Have the slaves on our American plantations such privileges 
as these ? Can they sue their masters at law ? and testify in court 
against them? Are they ever allowed to be skilled in letters and the 
arts ? Is there any refuge from the master's fury ? No ; none of these 
things in christian America. Yet the slave of the heathen Athens 
had them all. 

In Rome, the condition of the slaves was similar to that at Athens. 
Wherever the army went, there they made slaves. Slave merchants 
were always found attached to the army. 

" Slaves in Rome occupied every conceivable station, from the dele- 
gate superintending the rich man's villa, to the meanest office of me- 
nial labor or obsequious vice ; from the foster-mother to the rich man's 
child, to the lowest degradation to which woman can be reduced. The 
public slaves handled the oar in the galleys, or labored on the public 
works. Some were lictors, some were jailors. Executioners were 
slaves. Slaves were watchmen, watermen, scavengers. Slaves regu- 
lated the rich palace in the city ; they performed all the drudgery of 
the farm. They were frequently taught to read and write, and the 
arts. Virgil made one of his a poet. Horace was the son of a slave. 
The physician and the surgeon were often slaves — so too the preceptor 
and the pedagogue : the reader and the stage player : the clerk and the 
amanuensis : the architect and the smith. The armigeri, or esquires, 
were slaves. You cannot name an occupation connected with agricul- 
ture, manufactures, or public amusement, that was not the patrimony 
of slaves. Slaves engaged in connnerce ; slaves were wholesale mer- 
chants ; the slaves were retailers. Slaves shaved notes, and the mana- 
gers of banks were slaves." 

All of this was a natural consequence of their system. They took theii 
equals, and often superiors, in war. They did not go and steal a help- 
less race and degrade them even below what they were by nature, and 
then consider that very degradation which they themselves had made 
as a proof that they were intended for slaves. It was the common 
understanding among nations, that if they went to war they exposed 
all of their men to slavery who might happen to be taken prisoners. 
The whole army of Valerian were taken prisoners by Sapor, king of 
Persia. They did not complain of this as unjust, for it was according 
to the laws of war. It was doing to them what they would have done 
to their enemies, had fortune been in their favor. 



10 

While slavery thus spread over all of the east, we find nothing like 
modern negro slavery. We find no case where the slave laws and 
treatment were so hard as in our southern states. The slaves were the 
result of conquest ratlior than avarice ; and when they had fallen into 
the master's hands, they received milder treatment, and had more 
means of enjoyment, and had far greater hopes of liberty, than in our 
own country. This kind of slavery, which is certainly less unright- 
eous, less shocking to liumanity, than African slavery, did not receive 
the approval of conscientious heathen, even. Aristotle opposed it as 
unjust. Justinian, while he acknowledged it agreeable to the laws and 
the practices of nations, still condemned it as unjust and inhuman. The 
whole sect of the Essenes, as they were called, in Asia, and Therapeutas, 
as they were called in Greece and Egypt, a very numerous sect, re- 
garded slavery as a great injustice and sin. 

11. The appearance of Jesus of Nazareth, the authorized teacher of 
the world, was the greatest event in the world's history. He intro- 
duced a religion destined to become universal. We profess to be be- 
lievers in that religion. We profess to look to Jesus as the author and 
finisher of our faith, and to receive his doctrines as our guide and rule of 
conduct. This all christians do. It is, therefore, important to examine 
the position that Jesus and the christian religion assumed towards slavery. 
I admit that there is no passage condemning slavery, in express terms. 
I admit that Paul exhorted servants, or slaves, to be obedient to their 
masters. But then it is a historical fact, that slaves were equal to 
their masters so far as the blessings and privileges of christian institu- 
tions were concerned, in the early ages of Christianity. 

1. In the first place, Christ never claimed to give a system of posi- 
tive laws. He did not condemn such a law, or institution, as bad 
in itself. He condemned the principle upon which it is founded. He did 
not seek to make men better, by outward constraint, but by changing 
the inner man. He did not seek to bind and compel men's hands, but 
to give them willing hearts. He dealt with principles, and not directly 
with positive institutions, which are the outward manifestation of prin- 
ciples. We should not, therefore, expect any express prohibition of sla- 
very. Christ did not wish to forbid it, until he had brought men to 
see the wickedness and injustice of it. This he sought to do, by giv- 
ing them such principles and views of their fellow men as to make 
them regard slavery as the most daring outrage against the laws of 
God that man could commit. 

2. Christianity makes no distinction between the races of men. ' God 
hath made of one blood,' that is to say, equal, 'all nations of men to 
dwell on the face of the earth.' Here the fundamental principle of 
negro slavery is directly contradicted by Christianity. The Africans are 
not, as the slaveholder says, a race, inferior to ours, and made so to be 
slaves. 

3. The fundamental principle of Christianity is declared to be, "Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, and mind, and strength, 
and tluj neighbor as thyself y Now, in the eye of the gospel, every 
one is your neighbor who is within the reach of your benevolence. 
Is slavery a manifestation of this brotherly love ? 



4. " Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do 
unto you, do ye even so to them." 

Can the slave-holder pretend that he does this to his slave ? If so, 
he will be willing to give the only convincing proof of his sincerity, 
by changing condition with his slaves for a while. If there must be 
slaves, as he pretends, let him alternate with the black man ; one be 
slave one year, and the other the next. FU engage that the black man 
will consent. 

Here, then, is as much opposition to slavery, as there could, from 
the nature of the case, be. Bat Christianity will not have done its per- 
fect work, in this respect, when slavery is abolished. There are other 
violations of this principle of love, justice and equality, that must melt 
away. Abolition will not have done its work till it hath destroyed the 
distinction between the kitchen and the parlor. The day is not far dis- 
tant when this last evil will be regarded as quite as unjustifiable and 
as inconsistent with Christianity as slavery now is. God speed the 
happy day. 

After Constantino, when Christianity became the religion of the em- 
pire, christian captives were not made slaves. The slave-market must 
be supplied from the captives of heathen nations and tribes. 

The nothern tribes had practiced the same policy, of making slaves 
of their captives, long before they were known to the Roman conque- 
rors, as Greece and Rome had done. 

The clergy, during the period from this time to the Reformation, 
never ceased to inveigh against the evils and hardships of slavery, and 
to labor for its abolition. We find them urging, stoutly, that no mas- 
ter should have power to punish or correct his slave, without regular 
process in the courts of justice. Pope Alexander III. declared that 
" Nature having made no slaves, all men have ah equal right to liberty." 
The clergy broke open the slave-markets of Bristol, Hamburgh, Lyons 
and Rome, to set the slaves free. LeoX. declared that "not the chris- 
tian religion only, but nature herself, cries out against slavery," and 
Paul III. imprecated curses, in two separate briefs, on those who should 
enslave Indians, or any other class of men. 

After Christianity was fairly established in its connection with the 
state, then was presented another feature of slavery. • The Christians 
seemed to feel, that in consequence of the peculiar relation which they 
supposed they sustained to God, they had a right to enslave all who 
were not believers in Christ. In the wars in which the Christians were 
engaged with the Mahometans especially, the Christians seemed to have 
no doubt that it was right to make the followers of the Impostor, as 
they called him, slaves. They pretty generally regarded it as a duty 
to carry on war against the unbelievers. In the wars of Ferdinand and 
Isabella, against the Moors of Grenada, it was considered a matter of 
public and religious rejoicing when they had succeeded in killing, and 
especially in making slaves, of the followers of Mahomet. 

III. We have now arrived at a new and most important era in the 
history of slavery. Hence, afterward, the character of slavery among 
European nations, and their descendants, is materially and essentially 



12 

different from what it was before. I wish to call your attention particu- 
larly to this fact, as it. deserves the most serious consideration, and is 
most significant, in meaning, to the friend of the slave. We have ar- 
rived at the origin of negro slavery ; and that species of slavery rests 
upon a foundation entirely ditierent from that of any other species. 

Before this time, slaves were taken in war. They were a part of the 
lawful conquest. After this time, they were kidnapped in time of peace. 
Before this time, nations took their equals in fair and lawful combat, on 
the battle field. Their motive was not so much avarice as glory. Slaves 
were the trophies of war. A man kept them, not so much for the sake 
of enriching himself, as for insignia of his nobility and consequence. But 
after this period the case was very different. The innocent and helpless 
natives of Africa were hunted and kidnapped, as one hunts the deer of 
the mountain. Tiiey were carried to serve the avarice of masters too 
lazy to work for themselves. It now became man-stealing. The motive 
that actuated those who enslaved their fellow-men now became very 
much lower than it had been before. It was ihatbase, unprincipled avarice, 
that sacrifices every thing to self. They engaged in reducing men to 
slavery for the sake of the profits of slavery. They bought and sold hu- 
man flesh for gain. A motive so grovelling as this had not actuated 
the enslavers of the human race before. The difference between any of 
the kinds of slavery that existed before, and negro slavery, is the same 
as the difference between war and secret murder, in times of peace ; it 
is the same as that between a duel, where the parties consent to risk their 
lives in equal combat, and midnight robbery, where the foot-j)ad mur- 
ders the traveller for his money ; it is the same as the difference between 
winning one's money at the gaming table, and stealing it in some secret 
and well laid plan of thievery. 

It was now held that Africans were an inferior race, made so by their 
Creator, for the purpose of being slaves to us, their superiors. 

We must expect that after this the character of slavery will be differ- 
ent, and much worse than before. Man, moved by avarice, in what he 
has persuaded himself is right, or rather has determined to do, whether 
right or wrong, is deaf to the calls of mercy and humanity. He 
will hardly hesitate before any extreme of suffering and cruelty. The 
thorny recollections of past injustice and wrong will embitter his hate 
for his victim, and, drunkard-like, he will drown the past in the greater 
cruelties of tlie present. O, what an epoch in the world's history was 
this ! One portion of the great family of man, the most civilized, the 
most enlightened, the most highly favored of God, their common Father, 
the followers of his only begotten and dearly beloved Son, the profes- 
sors of the only true religion, to whose care God had committed the 
reformation and salvation of the world, deliberately and coolly doomed 
their unfortunate brethren, for whose benefit they had been entrusted 
w^ith so many -blessings by their heavenly Father, to slavery ; to drag out 
a miserable life, in toil, and groans, and all the unmitigated horrors of 
bondage. What mercy can we hope for the poor, defenceless African, 
now? Who shall deliver him from the cruelties of a master more dread- 
ful than the wild beasts of his native forest? for into such hands he must 
sometimes fall. O ye thunders of Almighty God, why do ye sleep ! 
Ye rocks, hills and mountains, why do ye stand in silence and see the 



13 

chains fastened upon the innocent, defenceless sons of God, your Creator 
and theirs ! Ye surrounding deserts, why do ye not overwhelm the 
enslaving demons with your drifting sands ! Old Ocean, how can you 
keep quiet ! why not open and let down the slavers as they sail over your 
tranquil bosom ! Man will not defend his brother man, and why, yc ele- 
ments, why will not you ? O Africa ' why did not you sink at once 
to a watery grave, where the weary are at rest, and the wicked cease 
from troubling ? 

This change in the character of slavery is enough to convince me 
that it has arrived at its last stage. The darkest hour is the last before 
the day dawns. The men into whose hands slavery has now fallen, with 
their views and motives, will carry it to such extremes as to call forth an 
opposition that will exterminate the evil. It is a doctrine of reason, and 
confirmed by the experience of all history, that when any institution or 
practice, which is not founded on the principles of truth and justice, has 
fallen into the hands of low, avaricious men, they always carry it so far 
as to shock and rouse the slumbering moral sentiment of the more vir- 
tuous and well-principled, till they commence an opposition to the evil 
which ends in its extinction. 

I will give but two illustrations out of the hundreds that history affords. 
The sale of indulgences by the Popeof Rome, which was first introduced 
as a mere matter of convenience, was at last seized upon by the cupidity 
of Leo X. as a means of raising money to defray the expense of the 
extensive building in which he was engaged. His avaricious motives 
carried the evil so far, as to call forth Luther and the Reformation. The 
only other case I shall cite is that of England in taxing the Colonies. 
She had practiced upon the unjust principle of taxation without repre- 
sentation, until her avarice carried it so far as to arouse the inhabitants 
of the Colonies, as one man, to throw off the yoke which they had long 
worn, but had now become more heavy and galling. 

This is now most obviously the case with slavery. It has fallen into 
the hands of avaricious men. The tendency of public opinion is towards 
liberty and equality, true democracy. Here slavery stands in this age, in 
the sunny days of liberty, intelligence and religion ; having sailed down 
the current of time, like some ice-berg that has floated from the frozen 
regions of its northern home, into the tropics, where every thing around 
is opposed to it, and it to every thing. Those who are interested in re- 
taining it still longer, draw tighter and tighter the bands of slavery, 
lest its diminished form slip out; not considering that the bands are so 
tight already as to be bursting and falling oft'. 

The tribes of Africa have been accustomed to make slaves of the cap- 
tives taken in war, from the earliest times of which we have any informa- 
tion. Slavery existed among the tribes of Africa, just as it had done 
among the tribes of Europe. Equals enslaved equals. But African 
slaves were not introduced into Europe until A. D. 1440. 

Soon after the Portuguese conquests in the Barbary states, the love of 
gain and hatred for the infidels induced the Portuguese to visit western 
Africa. They sailed so far south as Cape Blanco. Antony Gonzalez, the 
leader of the expedition, took some of the natives and brought them 
home. They were not, however, treated as slaves, but rather as strangers, 
who were required to give information of their native country. They 



14 

were finally carried back, and their fellow-countrymen gave the Portu- 
guese gold and African slaves in exchange. This was the first introduc- 
tion of negro slavery into Europe ; " and mercantile cupidity," says Ban- 
croft, " immediately observed that negroes might become an ojjject of 
lucrative commerce. New ships were despatched without delay." Spain 
also engaged in the traffic, and even claimed the honor of having first 
introduced it. 

In 1492, Columbus discovered America, and carried back with him to 
Spain five-hundred native Indians, for slaves. But these Indians were 
liberated by the hunianity of Isabella. The same cupidity, however, that 
had so eagerly engaged in the African slave-trade, immediately com- 
menced to take the natives of America for its victims. But they were 
not good slaves ; they were too shy to be easily caught, so the project 
was finally abandoned. But the discovery of the new world opened an 
extensive slave-market. Thither the slavers directed their course, and 
by tills means Europe has been saved being overrun by a slave popula- 
tion, as we are. The different nations engaged in the profitable traffic. 
This they seemed to do remorselessly. Nations have no conscience. 

The cultivation of sugar was now successfully begun in Hispaniola. 
It was found that one negro could do as much work as four Indians, and 
the mild and tender-hearted Las Casas returned from Hispaniola to plead 
with the Spanish court to relieve the Indians ; and since he saw that they 
loould have some slaves, he proposed that the more hardy iVfricans, who 
he had seen were better able to bear the burden, should be substituted 
for the Indians. This was in 1517, and the emperor, Charles V. granted 
a patent to certain persons to supply the Spanish islands with slaves. 
But even now there were some who opposed the slave-trade as unjust 
and iniquitous. Among them was Soto, the confessor of Charles V. 
Cardinal Ximines, whatever he might have thought of the justice of 
slavery, opposed the introducing of negroes into the Spanish islands, as 
impolitic. His predictions proved true. Hayti, the first spot to receive 
African slaves, was the first spot of successful resistance to the whites; 
and the first to establish a government of free blacks in the western 
world. 

In 1562, Sir John Hawkins fraudulently carried a cargo of slaves to 
Hispaniola. This was the first of Englishmen's engaging in the traffic. 
The profits of such commerce attracted the attention of Q,ueen Elizabeth. 
The English, ever bent upon gain, encouraged the business. 

In 1645. Thomas Keyser and James Smith, the latter a member of the 
church in Boston, sent out a ship to Guinea, ' to trade for negroes.' This, 
I believe, was the first instance of any of the inhabitants of the Colonies 
engaging in this nefarious traffic. But Massachusetts could not approve 
of such injustice. The cry was raised against Keyser and Smith, as mal- 
efactors and murderers. After advice with the elders, the representatives 
ordered the negroes to be restored to their native country at the public 
charge. 

In Virginia, there had from the first existed a species of servitude, 
brought over from England. The servant stood to his master in the rela- 
tion of a debtor, bound to discharge the costs of his emigration, by the 
employment of his powers for the benefit of the creditor. This soon 
gave rise to oppression and cruelty. Persons in England decoyed the 



15 

unwary into coming over here, and then sold them for four, five and six 
times the cost of emigration. The condition of these apprenticed ser- 
vants was hmited to a certain time, and the laws favored their earlv 
enfranchisement. 

In August, 1620, a Dutch man-of-war entered James river, and landed 
twenty negroes. This is the epoch of the introduction of African slavery 
among the English Colonies. The increase was at first slow. But the 
increasing demand for laborers, and the superiority in point of profit of 
the negro slaves over any other kind of laborers, tended to increase the 
number of slaves. 

From that period negro slavery extended itself to nearly or quite 
all of the states. Massachusetts was the first to abolish it. That was 
the only state, in 1788, when the constitution was adopted, whose laws 
did not tolerate slavery. The northern states have, however, gradually 
abolished it, so that now it does not exist north of Maryland, Virginia 
and Kentucky. It was declared, by an ordinance of congress, on the 13th 
of July, 1787, recommended by Thomas Jefterson, that" there should be 
neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the territory north of the 
Ohio river, after that time, except as a punishment for crimes." 

Negro slavery still exists in this republic in the District of Columbia, 
all the southern states and territories ; and to that we will direct our atten- 
tion. 

I now proceed to speak of the political relation between slavery and 
our country ; and consider the position that the constitution assumed 
towards that institution. 

When the convention assembled at Philadelphia, in May, 1787, the laws 
of every state except Massachusetts tolerated slavery. In this state of 
things it could not well be that the constitution proposed by such an 
assembly should not recognize slavery in some form or another. Yet 
nothing is clearer than that the heroes and patriots who had just been 
so much engaged in the struggle for their own liberties, expected that 
negro slavery would soon cease, and be out-rooted from our republic. 
During this struggle they had " remembered those in bonds as bound 
with them." They could not well raise their hands and hearts to pray 
God to assist them, without resolving, as soon as they should have suc- 
ceeded in their cause, to commence a course of measures that should 
result in freedom for every man in the country, whether black or white. 
Persecuted sects always preach toleration ; and so the oppressed preach 
universal freedom. 

Accordingly the delegates, in framing the constitution which they hoped 
and expected would be perpetual, and remain as the bond" of union 
between the different states long after slavery should be abolished, care- 
fully avoided using the word " slave," as though they would blotout every 
thing that could tell to future generations that a nation of freemen, who 
had declared that " all men are born free and equal," and who had 
"pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor" to maintain that doc- 
trine, had still continued to contradict that doctrine by their most solemn 
declarations, and still held their fellow-men in a bondage far more galling 
and degrading than that which they had shed so much blood to free 
themselves from. The great men of that day had been roused, by the 
exciting scenes in which they had been engaged, above that stupidity, 



13 

that heartless calculation, that indiflbrence to all but self, that could think 
of holding any one in slavery, on any consideration, whatever might be 
his color, or however degraded lie might be. We seem to be quite igno- 
rant how much the great men of that time opposed slavery. It is a fact 
which we seem to overlook, that all tiie great men of that time were 
abohtionists. They all held the same, or nearly the same, views of slavery 
that modern abolitionists do. 

What position then did the constitution proposed by such men assume 
towards slavery ? I have already said that the word ' slave,' or ' slavery,' 
does not occur in that instrument. I now say, that there is not a word 
there that would not have an appropriate meaning, if there had been no 
slaves in the land. There are but three passages that have any direct 
bearing upon slavery ; and no one who did not know that there were 
slaves in the country when the constitution was adopted, would ever 
infer from the instrument itself that there were any. This studious 
omission of the word ' slave,' and of any exclusive reference to the slaves, 
is to my mind most significant of the views and expectations of the framers 
of the constitution. 

The first passage that can have any reference to slaves, is in art. 1, 
sec. 2, clause 3d : where it is said, that representatives and direct taxes 
shall be apportioned to the number of the inhabitants of the states, which 
shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, in- 
cluding those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding the 
Indians, '^ three Jifths of all other persons." These six words, 'three 
fifths of all other persons,' refer doubtless to the slaves. But if one did 
not know that we had slaves, from another source, he could not infer 
from this language that we had any. 

The next clause is in art. 1, sec. 9, first clause: where it is declared 
that congress shall not have the power to prohibit the importation of 
"such persons as the states now think proper to admit," before 1808. 

The next reference to slaves is in art. 4, sec. 2, third clause : which 
provides for the sending back " all persons held to service or labor" in 
one state who may have escaped into another. 

I cannot forbear remarking again upon the delicacy with which the 
framers of the constitution treated the subject of slavery. Those noble 
men could not speak the word ' slave' without a blush at the thought of 
their inconsistency, so long as slavery continued in our country. They 
very delicately avoided offending the freemen of our country, by using 
the word ' slave,' as though there were any slaves in this land of liberty, 
in the bond of union between the states. 

They had not the shame-faced impudence to ask the people to con- 
sign one part of their inhabitants to hopeless slavery, by that very instru- 
ment by which they secured their own freedom and the protection of the 
laws. They wished to do no such thing. Yet it is said that the consti- 
stitution guarantees the perpetuation of slavery, — that the men who 
fought, and bled, and prayed to God for their own freedom, consigned 
other men to slavery. Had such a proposition been made to the veterans 
of '76 they would "have remonstrated with a vehemence that would have 
made our rock-ribbed mountains ring with their reverberations. 

Yet the constitution did recognize slavery. This is an astonishing 
fact, and calls for an explanation. 1 offer the following : 



17 

When the convention met at Philadelphia, to frame a constitution, the 
necessity of something of the kind, by which the federal government 
could be more consolidated and efficient than it was under the old con- 
federacy, was most pressing. Slavery existed, and the south felt that 
they could not emancipate all of their slaves immediately. Therefore it 
was necessary, if they would have any constitution, to adopt one that 
should tolerate slavery, for a while at least. The patriots of that age 
thought that by so modifying the constitution as to tolerate slavery, they 
should by no means perpetuate it, or retard its entire abolition, while 
they should secure the ado|jtion of a federal constitution. A constitu- 
tion that required immediate fMiiaricipation would not be received, and 
they could do nothing, by recommending such an one, to hasten the abo- 
lition of slavery. Under these circumstances they did the best they 
could, as they thought, and recommended the constitution that was 
adopted, and under which we live. 

But there is evidence sufficient to prove to my mind that there was an 
implied promise on the part of the southern states, that, if we would 
adopt a constitution tolerating slavery, they would immediately take 
measures w'lich should result in the emancipation of every slave, "at a 
period not remote." I give an outline of the testimony. I have already 
referred to the general expectation among the framers of the constitu- 
tion, and all the distinguished men of that day, that the happy event 
would soon come. I quote f\-om the discussions in the conventions of 
the different states, held about that time, and partly for the purpose of dis- 
cussing and adopting the constitution that had been recommended to 
them. 

Mr. Iredell, of N. Carolina, afterwards Judge of the Supreme Court 
of the U. S. said, " fVhen the entire abolition of slavery talies place, it 
will be an event pleasing to every generous mind and every friend of 
human nature." Here it is clearly shown that he expected that slavery 
would be entirely abolished. Judge Wilson, of Pennsylvania, one of 
the framers of the constitution, afterwards Judge of the Supreme Court 
of the U. S. said, that he "considered the clause relating to the slave 
trade as laying the fonndation for banishing slavery out of this coun- 
try. Yet the lapse of a few years and congress will have the power 
to exterminate slavery within oar borders." 

Mr. Tyler, of Virginia, when opposing that clause which forbids 
congress to prohibit the foreign slave trade before ISOS, said, " My 
earnest desire is that it shall be handed down to posterity that I opposed 
this wicked clause." Mr. Johnson said, " The principle of emancipation 
has begun since the revolution. Let us do what we will, it will come 
round." Judge Dawes, of Mass. said, " Slavery has received a mortal 
wound." General Heath said, " Slavery was confined to the states 
now existing; it could not be extended. By their ordinance congress 
has declared that the new states should be republican states and hold 
no slaves." 

These are quotations from the discussions in the conventions of the 
states, and show clearly what was the expectation. We have seen 
that this expectation was not confined to the northern states. It pre- 
vailed at the south. I give one more quotation still more explicit. In 
c 



18 

the Virginia convention of 1787, Mr. Mason, author of the Virginia 
constitution, said, " The augmentation of the slaves weakens the states, 
and such a trade is diaboHcal in itself and disgraceful to mankind. As 
miidi as I value a luiion of all the states, I tuould not admit the south- 
ern states'''' (S. Carolina and Georgia) " into the union unless they agree 
to a discontinuance of this disgraceful trade ;" and 'a discontinuance of 
this disgraceful trade' was regarded as a ' mortal wound to slavery,' the 
beginning of a course of measures to result in the " banishing slavery 
out of this country." 

If, then, the south encouraged such an expectation for the purpose of 
securing the ado})tion of the constitution as it now is, does it not amount 
to an implied promise that they would take measures to bring about 
the expected emancii>ation ? Yet they have done directly the contra- 
ry to tliis. Now they have the impudence to come forward and say, 
that it is a breach of faith to abolish slavery in the District of Cohim- 
bia and the Territories. It is intVinging upon their rights for us to 
talk about emanci]'ation. We have no right to interfere. Shall we 
be duped by such things? 

But let us look a little more minutely at the relation which tlie con- 
stitution sustains to the slave. I profess no great skill in the legal 
science, but I will undertake to prove before any impartial court, that 
the slave laws in tiic southern states are unconstitutional, and that the 
slave has by the constitution a right to his' freedom. " In the language 
of the supreme court, ' There are acts wliicli the general or state leg- 
islatures cannot do, without exceeding their authorities. There are 
certain vital principles in our free republican government which will 
determine and over-i^ule an apparent and flagrant abuse of legislative 
power ; as, to authorize inanifest injustice by positive lav/, to 
take away that security for personal liberty or private property for the 
protection whereof the government was established. An act of the 
legislature contrary to the great first principles of the social compact 
cannot be considered a rightful exercise of legislative authority.' " 
Ely Moore's speech in the House of Representatives, Feb. 4, 1839. 

Here, I ask, are not the supreme court obliged, by this decision of 
theirs, to set aside, as unconstitutional, any law which upholds human 
slavery ? or is human slavery no ' manifest injustice ?' and does it not 
take away the ' secnrity for personal liberty ?' According to this decis- 
ion, is not any law that acknowledges, or is founded upon the right of 
property in human beings, unconstitutional ? 

It is declared in the i)reamble to the constitution, that it was adopted 
"to establish justice," "to ensure domestic tranijuility," "to promote 
the general welfare," "and to secure the blessings of liberty." But 
every law which has beeii enacted against the slave has done directly 
contrary to this. The laws of the southern states have made the con- 
dition of the slave a great deal worse, while they have done nothing 
to benefit liis condition since this declaration. 

Instead of ' establishing justice,' the slave laws have established 
injustice and oppression. Instead of ' ensuring domestic tranquility,' 
they have increased ten fold the fear of servile insurrection, and the 



19 

peril of living in the, slave holding states. Instead of 'promoting the 
general welfare,' they have ground the black man into the dust, and 
subjected him to merciless cruelty. How has the constitution secured 
the blessings of liberty to one fifth of the peo})le, who are now in 
chains? How has it secured the right of petition, and the freedom of 
discussion ? How does it secure the blessings of liberty to any one 
who goes to the south, believing slavery to be a sin ? Let those who 
have suffered by the Lynch law answer. 

But if the constitution recognizes slaves at all, it recognizes them 
as posons, RS men. Yes; if the constitution recognizes slaves at all, 
then it recognizes them as persons, and stands upon the ground, that 
all men or persons are born free and equal, and that they have certain 
inherent rights, which no legislation can deprive them of, such as life, 
liberty and property. If, then, the constitution recognizes slaves as 
persons, it does thereby secure to them all the rights of persons. — 
among which are a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; 
and every law that makes the case of the slave worse than that of a 
town pauper, or an apprentice bound out by indenture, is unconstitu- 
tional. 

If, on the other hand, the constitution does not recognize the slavery 
of a portion of the inhabitants of the country, then by the constitution 
and by natural right, they may demand their freedom, and we must 
grant it. 

The constitution recognizes slaves as persons, but the southern slave 
laws deny that the slave is a person, and make him a thing, a chattel per- 
sonal, in direct contradiction of the words of the constitution. Slavery, 
as it exists now, is a different thing from what it was in 1788. The 
southern people have changed its character, and thereby forfeited all 
the right to its protection, which they could once have claimed under 
the constitution. If, then, the constitution protected the slavery of 1788, 
it certainly does not that of 1838. 

But there is a stronger argument yet. The Constitution, art. 1, 
sect. 9, clause 2, says, '■ The privilege of the writ habeas corpus shall 
not be suspended unless wiien in cases "of rebellion or invasion the 
public safety may require it."' The constitution does not define what 
is the habeas corpus, and in all such cases the rule is to adopt the defi- 
nition of the English common law. I give it as stated by Chancellor 
Kent, one of the best authorities upon the subject. Let us then look 
at the case and see what is the writ habeas corpus. " Every restraint 
upon a man's liberty is, in the eye of the law, imprisonment." Kent, 
vol. 2, p. 26. Therefore the slave, in the eye of the law, is held in 
imprisonment by his master. " All persons" — and the constitution calls 
slaves persons — " restrained of their liberty under any pretence what- 
ever are entitled to prosecute the writ" habeas corpus, " unless they 
be detained, (1) by process from any court, or judge of the United 
States, having exclusive jurisdiction in the case ; (2) or by final judg- 
ment, or decree, or execution thereon, of any competent tribunal of 
civil or criminal jurisdiction, other than in the case of a commitment 
for an alleged contempt." Kent, vol. 2, p. 29. Here, then, it is 



20 

declared by the constitution, that any person, black or white, who is 
restrained of his liberty, luiless he be kept in prison awaiting a trial, 
or kept for the execution of the sentence of the court, has a right to 
the privilege of the habeas corpus writ. Hence any person wb.o is a 
friend to the slave may apply to any court, having authority to issue 
this writ, and the court mnst issue it against the slave-holder, to come 
into court and show by what right he holds his slave. The slave-holder 
will say he holds him by the law of the state in which he lives. It 
will then be shown to the court that these very slave laws are a sus- 
pension of the privilege of the habeas corpus writ, which the consti- 
tution says shall not be suspended. A person who has sued out the 
writ habeas corpus " is to be remanded to imprisonment if he was de- 
tained ; (1) by process of any court of the United States having 
exclusive jurisdiction; (2) by virtue of a final decree, or judgment, or 
process thereon ; (3) or for contempt specially and plainly charged;" 
otherwise he is to be set free. The slave is not detained by any court 
waiting his trial ; he is not held for the execution of any sentence of 
a competent court of civil or criminal jurisdiction; nor for any con- 
tempt specially and plainly charged ; therefore, by the privilege of the 
habeas corpus, he must be set free. It will be shown, further, that in 
the English courts, slaves can and actually have claimed the privilege 
of the habeas corpus writ, and it has been decided that they are entitled 
to their freedom by the privilege of that writ. Here, then, the Amer- 
ican constitution has established a law by which slaves have actually 
claimed and received their liberty in England. It is not very probable, 
however, that any American court would grant the writ to the slave, 
or decide in his favor, especially in a slave-holding district. 

I admit that I do not suppose that the framers of the constitution 
intended to secure the privilege of the habeas corpus to the slaves. 
The fact is, they did not think of making any constitutional provis- 
ion for them in any way. It did not occur to them that any could be 
needed. There was such a universal expectation that the moral sen- 
timent would induce all men to do what they could to hasten the 
emancipation of the slaves, that no one entertained a doubt that it would 
soon come. The framers of the constitution therefore avoided, so far 
as possible, any reference to the foul stain upon the nation's character, 
— and so deeply did they feel the evil of slavery themselves, that they 
did not suppose any provision in the constitution could be necessary to 
hind men, much less to give them leave to secure the blessings of lib- 
erty to all. ■ So, when we speak of congress having the power to abol- 
ish slavery in the District of Columbia, and the Territories, and to pro- 
hibit the internal slave trade, we do not suppose that the framers of the 
constitution thought, or intended to give congress the special power to 
do these things. They did not give that power intentionally, for the 
best of reasons. They supposed that slavery would be abolished by 
other means, so that there never could be an occasion for the exercise 
of such a power, if it were given. 

But their expectation has failed. Slavery is not abolished. Shall 
not congress have every power and the slave every privilege, that the 



'21 

most liberal construction of the language of the constitution will allow ? 
I know that it is a rule of interpretation, in law, that the intention of 
the law maker shall be met, and that be law, whatever language he 
may have used to express that intention. But it is also a rule of interpre- 
tation, and paramount to all others, that the language of the law maker 
shall be so construed as to make the law as consistent with right and 
justice as possible. By this rule the constitution must be so interpreted 
as to allow the slave the privilege of the habeas corpus writ. 

Farther, all traffic in human beings appears unconstitutional when 
considered from another point of view. Not merely the internal slave- 
trade, but any bargain by which a man is sold, is unconstitutional. 
The internal slave-trade, and every bargain by which man is sold, goes 
upon the ground that he is property. But this is not the doctrine of 
the constitution. 

By the constitution, no man can be owned, or bought and sold. It 
speaks of persons ' bound to service,' but never of persons that are 
' owned.' It calls slaves, ])ersons : and to consider a person, a man, as 
property, an article of commerce, is such an anomaly, so inconsistent 
with the whole tenor of our institutions, that it is not to be done with- 
out the most positive proof that the framers of the constitution 
intended it. 

But there is positive and conclusive proof that the framers of the 
constitution did 7iot consider the slaves as property. They allow three 
fifths of them to be added to the number of the free citizens, in making 
out the apportionment for the number of representatives in congress 
and electors for president and vice-president. Now in a government 
like ours, founded upon the polls and not upon the property of the 
citizens, and where all men are recognized as free and equal, and wlicre 
the poor and the rich are to have an equal influence in making the laws 
and choosing the rulers and officers of government, it is certain that 
the south could not be allowed an extra number of representatives in 
congress on account of their slaves, if the slaves were considered as 
property. It is as inconsistent to allow the south an extra number of 
representatives on account of their having slaves, if their slaves are 
property, as it would be to allow the north to have an extra number in 
consequence of their sheep and cattle, their bank stock, their manu- 
facturing capital, or property of any kind. The founders of our gov- 
ernment would never have allowed the principle, that people were to 
be represented in proportion to their properly, or for their property in 
any form. Yet this they did do, if they considered slaves as property. 

But farther ; " in all our intercourse with foreign nations, in all our 
treaties in which the words, 'goods,' 'effects,' &c., are used, slaves 
have never been considered as included. In all cases in which slaves 
are the subject matter of controversy, they are specially named by the 
word 'slaves,' and if I remember rightly," and he appealed to the 
senate to correct him if he were wrong, "it has been decided in con- 
gress, that slaves are not property, for which compensation shall be 
made when taken for public use (or rather slaves cannot be considered 
as taken for public use) or as property by the enemy when they are in 



22 

the service of the United States." Senator Morris (of Ohio.) Speech 
in senate, Febrnary 9, 1S39, 

If, then, the constitntion does not consider slaves as property, it con- 
siders them persons, and secures to them personal rights ; and the first 
right, and the foundation of all other rights, is one's right to himself. 
If one has a right to himself, no one else can have a right to him to 
convey by sale — therefore he cannot be sold. 

V. Let us now see what eftbrts have been made to get rid of slavery 
and do justice to the oppressed. These eftbrts are of two kinds : 1. 
Legislative action ; and 2. Societies, 

1. All the northern states have abolished slavery. It is worthy of 
remark, in this connexion, that the states of New-Hampshire and 
Vermont considered that slavery was abolished by their constitutions ; 
and yet their constitutions contained nothing more from which such 
an inference could be drawn, than the constitution of Virginia or that 
of the United States does. This shows very clearly how diff"erent 
constructions can be put upon the same language, according to the 
interests and inclinations of people. 

Let us now see what the national legislature has done with regard 
to slavery. 

Before 1808, congress did all that it could to put a stop to the foreign 
slave-trade. By acts of March 22, 1794, and May 10, 1800, citizens 
of the United States were forbidden to carry slaves from the United 
States to any other country, or from one foreign country to another. 
In March 2, 1807, an act was passed prohibiting, under severe penalties, 
any person's importing slaves into the United States after the first day 
of January, 1808. Congress was forbidden by the constitution to have 
done this before. 

At first sight this seems to speak well of the intentions of our 
country. But when we look a little closer it appears rather different. 
When we look at the condition of the slave population at that time, 
we see that the time had come when the slave-holders could dispense 
with the foreign slave-trade with very little, if any. sacrifice to the slave- 
holding interests ; the time had come when we could raise our own 
slaves, so as not to need to import them. Then, forsooth, congress 
was ready to put a stop to the monstrous iniquity of bringing slaves 
into the country. Slaves that were raised here were acquainted with 
work, understood our language, and had been trained from infancy to 
the condition to which they were doomed for life ; and could be raised, 
if the masters would take a little pains to encourage it, about as fast as 
they were wanted, and nearly or quite as cheap as they could be imported 
from Africa, considering the risk of a slaving expedition. 

But notwithstanding we could raise our own slaves, foreign slaves 
continued to be smuggled into the country. In 1819, Mr. Middleton, 
of South-Carolina, estimated th(; number smuggled into the country 
annually at 13,000. Mr. Wright, of Virginia, thought that the number 
was as large as 15.000. Middleton and Wright were, I believe, both 
members of the House of Representatives at that time, and made the 
above statements on the floor of the house. 



23 

In April, 1818, congress went still further, and increased the penalties 
of being engaged in the foreign slave-trade, niid forbid any citizen 
being engaged in the slave-trade on board any foreign vessel. The 
next year, 1819, congress sent out armed vessels to the coast of Africa, 
to stop the slave-trade. In 1820, congress passed an act declaring the 
slave-trade piracy. Yes ; it is piracy by the laws of our land for a 
man to buy a slave on the coast of Africa and bring him here or carry 
him to any other country, but it is no crime, it is perluctly right, to buy 
a slave in one state and carry him to another. What makes such a 
mighty difference between the waters of the ocean and the soil of our 
own country, that what is right on one is a crime on the other ? 
Wherein consists such a difference between the shores of Africa and 
the capital of this free republic, that wluit is there the highest crime 
that human laws recognize is here innocent and protected by the laws ? 
'Tis right to hold slaves upon our land, and within sight of our shores, 
but beyond them it is a crime of deepest dye. 'Tis right and proper 
to buy negro slaves at Washington, where the freest people on earth 
hold their national councils — but 'tis piracy to buy them in Guinea. 
Is this "to establish justice?" Is it not rather utter contemj)t for it? 
Is the moral sentiment clean gone from man, that he can discern right 
from wrong no better than this ? Had the sable sons of Africa ever 
made such a mistake as this, there would be some ground for the 
opinion that they were not men, but a connecting link between man 
and brute. Slavery would not then be the sin that it now is, for no 
moral nature, no image of God, would have been marred and lost by it. 

This act of 1820 is the last act Congress has passed. Thus far 
they have done as near right and justice as they could afford to. The 
next step would interfere with the interests of the country ; it would 
require a sacrifice of gain and luxury that they could not afford 
the generosity and respect for the rights of others to make. Accord- 
ingly they have done nothing since but 'gag' the people, and declare 
that they would do nothing more. 

It is worthy of remark, that the American vessels sent out in 1819 
to put a stop to the slave trade, have not taken a single slaver. Why 
is this? While the English vessels have been constantly taking sla- 
vers, the Americans have taken none. Have they leagued with the 
pirates, and winked at their wrong doing ? 

2. Societies have been formed from time to time for the purpose of 
bettering the condition of the slave, or of "securing"' to him "the 
blessings of liberty." 

In 1785 there was an Abolition Society formed in New- York. The 
Hon. John Jay, afterwards Judge of the Supreme Court, was presi- 
dent. The object of the society was to " promote the manumission 
of slaves, and to protect such of them as have been or may be libe- 
rated." 

A similar society was formed in Philadelphia in 1787. Dr. Frank- 
lin was president, and Benjamin Rush secretary. Two years after, 
one was formed in Maryland. Societies were also formed about the 
same time in Virginia, Delaware and Connecticut. 



•24 

The principles entertained by these early societies were so nearly 
the same as those entertained and upheld by the modern abolitionists, 
that I need not here enter into a specification of them. 

In December, 1816, the slave-holding state of Virginia, feeling that 
the presence of the free blacks was a nuisance, and made their slaves 
uneasy, increased the danger of insurrection, and decreased very much 
the value of slave jiroperty, requested their governor to correspond 
with the President of the United States, "for the purpose of obtaining 
a territory on the coast of Africa, or some other place not within the 
States, to serve as an asylum for such persons as are now free, or may 
become so." 

About the same time a meeting was held at Washington, to take the 
same subject into consideration. Judge Washington was President. 
The result of the meeting was the formation of the American Coloni- 
zation Society. The President and the twelve Managers of this So- 
ciety were, it is believed, slave-holders. Their constitution declared 
that " tlie object to which the attention of this Society shall be crcZw- 
su-e/y directed, is to promote and execute a plan for colonizing the 
free people of color now residing in our country." 

There was not a word said about the evil, moral and political, of 
slavery. There was not even any design to benefit the slave ; for the 
efforts of the Society were to be directed exclusively io ihe free blacks. 
Of these free blacks there are in the United States 319,467 ; and 
2,122 have been carried to Liberia in the last eighteen years. This 
Society provides no means for emancipating a single slave, and in its 
constitution it does not even profess to aim at the emancipation of any. 
They would take all the slaves that were freely given them : and they 
actually did, in 19 years, carry eight hundred and nine manumitted 
slaves to Africa — just as many as were born in FIVE DAYS AND 
A HALF on an average. They had, moreover, ceased operation, so 
that in 1S34 they did not carry one single manumitted slave to Liberia. 
Judo-e Washington, the first president of the society, instead of freeing 
his slaves, sold them, fifty-four in number, to a slave-dealer for the 
New-Orleans market. 

I cannot spend any more time upon the Colonization Society than 
to show that it cannot and does not aim to free the slaves, but rather 
to benefit the slave-holder's property in his slaves. This, I think, I 
have abundantly done. 

*VI. We have thus far examined slavery as it was. We have 
looked at is origin, and traced its history to the present time. It now 
remains to consider the present number and condition of the slaves : 
the influence of slavery upon us at the north : our right and duty to 
do something: what we can do and how to doit: the abolition enter- 
prise : the objections to that enterprise : the principles and measures of 
the abolitionists: and finally notice the objections that are brought 
against immediate emancipation. This, with what has been already 
said, will cover the whole ground. 

* When tliis Discourse was delivered it was found too long for one evening, and what 
follows was delivered on the evening of Sunday, February 24. 



25 

When the constitution of the United States was adopted, there were 
something more than six hundred thousand slaves in the southern 
states, and about forty thousand in the northern states. Since that 
time all of the northern states have emancipated their slaves. But the 
slaves have increased so fast at the south that notwithstanding the de- 
crease at the north, where the whites have been fast increasing, the 
increase of the slave population in our country has just about equalled 
the increase of the white population. Hence the slaves must increase 
much faster than the whites at the south. This is one of the most 
alarming features of slavery, in a political point of view. Soon the 
south will be full and overrun with the slaves, and what can they do 
with them ? At present the property is working into the hands of a 
few, and the white population retiring before the blacks — and in a few 
years, we at the north may have to raise and pay a standing army to 
keep down the insurrections of the slaves. 

The daily increase of the slave jiopulation is about one huxdrkd 
AND SEVENTY-FIVE. Ycs, there are one lunidrcd and seventy-jive hu- 
man beings born into slavery in this land of liberty every day more 
than go from slavery in this world to freedom in the next. 

In the northern slave-holding states, Yirginia for instance, there is 
not so much demand for slave labor as in the more southern states. 
And so they raise slaves for the southern markets, just as we do sheep 
and cattle for our markets, and with about as little regard to chastity 
and the marriage contract among their slaves as we have among our 
cattle. The number of slaves annually transported from the northern 
slave-holding states to the southern, is about thirty thousand. This 
hnnual traffic in thirty thousand human beings exists by our sufferance ; 
is carried on by the sanction of laws that we at the north have helped 
to make, and mostly in the capital of our country, over which we at 
the north have joint control with the south. Our own government 
licenses man to sell his brother man within sight of the capitol of this 
free and christian republic ! 

Let us look at the condition of the slave. I do not wish to speak of 
individual cases of cruelty. These you must have heard to your heart's 
content, already. Beside, I do not wish to rest any argument upon such 
cases. 

(1.) For the last fifty ^^^ears the condition of the slave has been 
growing worse. Each state has continually been passing laws more 
and more severe, and in no case, so far as I know, have they relaxed 
their laws in the least. 

(2.) The laws of the slave-holding states give the slave no protec- 
tion against any white person whatsoever, any more than the laws of 
our state do our horses and oxen. To this there is one exception ; if 
it can be proved that a master has wilfully, deliberately and mali- 
ciously killed his slave, he is punishable for murder as though his vic- 
tim had been white, or free. But then, no black man can testify 
against a white man. Hence a man may murder slaves to any extent 
with impunity, if he only be out of sight of a white man. He may 
go on to his plantation and mow them down as he would weeds : the 

D 



26 

blacks that escape cannot be heard, and if there is no white man 
present to prove the master's guilt, he may go unpmiished. It is 
often said that the interest of the master would prevent his cruelty to 
his slaves. But we see that the interest of the northern farmer does 
not prevent his cruelty to his cattle ; does not prevent his starving them, 
and whipping them to death in his passions, and killing them when 
they are unfit for service ; no more will it prevent the southern slave- 
master from these things. The interest of the owner docs not in fact 
so much protect the slave as it does the cattle : for the slave feels his 
wrong and oj)prcssion, and this unavoidably leads him to provoke the 
rage of his jealous master far more frequently than he otherwise would. 
Were the slaves as insensible to their wrongs as brutes would be, they 
would be so submissive as to call forth no more cruelty than the brutes. 
But the master sees in the eye of every slave an expression of his 
sense of his wrongs, and we may well imagine the effect this must 
have upon the master's feelings. The drunkard must get drunk again 
to drown the shame of his foraier beastliness. The master who has 
been cruel and made his slaves feel their wrong, mnst continue to be 
cruel to blot out the recollections of former sufferings by pains of the 
present and the fears of the future. It is only by adding wrong "to 
wrong, cruelty to ciuelty, that he can keep his own mind from realiz- 
ing how cruel he has been and prevent the slaves from plotting any scheme 
of revenge or release. 

(3.) I give here an outline of the slave laws. 

(a) Slaves are the property of the master to all intents and purposes ; 
just as the horses, oxen and sheep of the northern farmer are the 
farmer's property. He, or she, is subject to the will, caprice and lust 
of the master. They can have no property. In many states there are 
laws expressly forbidding the slave to have property, and thereby making 
it impossible for them to hay their liberty, and that is usually the^only 
way they can get it. 

{b) The slaves are not only subjected to their own masters, but to 
other men. A man may whip or alDuse another's slave with impunity, 
unless he unfit him for labor ; and then his master can recover damages 
for loss of services. The slave gets nothing. In Louisiana, if a man 
by his cruelty forever unfits a slave for labor, he must pay his master 
the value of the slave ; but the unfortunate slave, crippled and 
maimed, and suffering to the end of his miserable life, can get no com- 
pensation whatever. 

(c) The laws inflict the severest penalties for what in the white man 
is no crime. In Georgia, any person may give a slave twenty lashes, 
(which would kill many a white man.) for being found^off the planta- 
tion to which he belongs, for any purpose whatever, without a license. 
In South-Carolina, any person finding more than seven slaves together 
in the highway, without a white man with them, may give each slave 
twenty lashes, in North Carolina, a slave travelling Mnthout a pass, 
or being found in another person's negro quarters, or kitchen, may be 
whijjped forty lashes, and every slave in whose company he may be 
found, twenty lashes. In Louisiana, a slave for being found on horse- 



■27 

back, without written permission, incurs twenty-five lashes. These are 
but a few, but 1 have time for no more. 

(d) The laws forbid mental and religious education. In 
South Carolina, any slaves that may be found assembled in a 
confined or secret place, for the purpose of mental instruc- 
tion, even though in presence of white persons, may be whipped with 
twenty lashes. Another law imposes a fine of £100 upon any person 
who may teach a slave to write. The Virginia laws declare that any 
school for the instruction of slaves, is an unlawful assembly, and any 
justice may intlict twenty lashes upon any slave found in such a school. 
In North Carolina, to teach a slave to read or write, or to give him any 
book (the Bible not excepted) is punishable with thirty-nine lashes, if the 
offender be a free black, but if a white, with a fine of $200. The rea- 
son given for this law is, that teaching slaves to read and write tends to 
excite dissatisfaction, and to produce insurrection and rebellion. In 
Georgia, if a white man teach a free negro even, to read or write, he is 
fined $500. In Louisiana, the punishment for teaching a slave to read 
or write, is one year's imprisonment. In Georgia, any justice of the 
peace may, at his discretion, break up any religious assembly of the slaves, 
and order each slave present to receive twenty-five stripes of a whip, 
switch, or cow-skin, on his bare back. In South Carolina, slaves may 
not meet for religious worship before sunrise or after sunset, unless a 
majority of the meeting be white, without incurring the penalty of twenty 
lashes, well laid on. In Virginia, all evening meetings for slaves, at any 
meeting house, are forbidden. In Mississippi, a master may permit a 
slave to attend the preaching of a while mci7i. In South Carolina, the 
law forbids the master's compelling the slave to work more than fifteen 
hours a day. The necessity for such a law does not speak very much 
for the humanity of the masters, or of his interest being a sufficient pro- 
tection to the slave. In Tennessee and Arkansas, the constitution forbids 
the legislatures to emancipate the slaves. In some of the states, Ten- 
nessee for example, a man cannot free his own slaves if he would, with- 
out permission of the legislature. 

Now does not the existence of such laws forbid us to believe that 
the slaves are treated kindly as a general thing ? If ' they are treated with 
kindness,' and ' are contented with their condition,' and ' as well ofl^ as 
the poor laborers of the north,' why are there such laws .^ In a commu- 
nity where such laws are demanded and upheld by public opinion, the 
slaves cannot be universally well treated. Those men who have been to 
the south, and say that the slaves are not cruelly treated, must be listened 
to with caution. It may be that they do not consider such treatment 
cruelty. But their testimony in any case can only prove that they have 
never seen the cruel treatment of the slave. It cannot prove there is no 
such treatment. They do not see all that there is. The testimony of 
one credible witness who has seen a thinof is worth moie than that of a 
thousand who merely have not seen it ; especially if we can easily account 
for their not having seen it. The house servants are the best, and they 
receive the best treatment ; and these it is for the most part that travellers 
and sojourners at the south see. Hence they see the best treatment of 
the best part of the slaves ; and this they report as a fair representation 
of the condition of the slave ! Contrast their account with the account 



.28 

of those who give the worst treatment of the worst part of the slaves, 
and a medium will probably be about a fair estimate. 

But I do not wish to rest any argument upon individual cases of cruelty. 
I wish merely to give you an outline of the system. This I have done 
by quoting from the slave laws — public documents that cannot be ques- 
tioned. From these you may infer what the condition of the slave must 
be. It is enough that he is a slave, even in the mildest form of slavery. 
We need not appeal to individual cases of cruelty, to show us that he 
ought to be free. 

It was from a view of this state of things — three millions of their fellow 
beings, about one-fifth of the j)opulation of the country, in a condition 
like what I have described, and the number increasing at the rate of one 
hundred and seventy-five every day, and with no one doing any thing to 
alleviate the condition of the oppressed, or save the country from the 
precipice over which it seemed to be rushing, — it was, I say, from a view 
of this state of things that some benevolent, justice-loving persons at the 
nortii raised their voices against this monstrous evil. 

I wish to call particular attention to this state of things ; for it is some 
times said that the abolitionists have retarded the emancipation of the 
slaves ; that there were means in operation that would have abolished 
slavery sooner than it can now be done, if the abolitionists had been 
silent. This is entirely false. There were no means in operation that 
even looked towards emancipation. The whole tendency of all the leg- 
islative proceedings of the slave-holding states had been for twenty years 
last past, before the abolition enterprise, to make the condition of^ the 
slave more abject, more wretched, and to increase the difficulties of 
emancipation. The constitution of Arkansas was so formed as to with- 
hold the power to emancipate the slave by legislative action. The con- 
stitution of Tennessee was altered so as to take the power of emancipa- 
tion from the state legislature. Louisiana once had a law prohibiting 
slave-merchants bringing slaves into the state with a view to selling them. 
But this law was repealed. Turn over the statute books of the south as 
you will, and you will find it universally the case that the most diabolical 
laws were the latest ones that were passed, &, every year the laws that were 
passed become more and more so. Thus there was nothing by way of 
legislative action that afforded tlie least hope, or encouragement to a hope, 
that slavery would be abolished in the southern states by a regular course 
of legislative actions. Every thing tended the other way. 

Neither was there any more encouragement frons societies or individuals 
using moral means. Immediately after the Revolution, the people felt so 
much gratitude for their own success that they determined to do some- 
thing for the slaves, and secure eventually their freedom. But their 
gratitude soon grew cold, and there seemed to be, year by year, less incli- 
nation to do any thing to hasten the freedom of the slaves. No ; it was 
because nothing was being done that the abolition enterprise was set on 
foot ; and whether that enterprise hasten the emancipation of the slaves 
or not, it certainly cannot retard it. 

After it was determined that something ought to be done, the question 
arose. Can we at the north do any thing ? Does slavery injure us so as 
to give us reason to do anything ? These questions need to be answered 
to the people now as much as they did then. 

VII. What then are some of the evils that we suffer from slavery ? 



•29 

The slave-holding slates have twenty-five representatives, and twenty- 
five electoral votes in choosing the president and vice-president, to which 
they have no right on tiie ground that slaves are property. According 
to the present apportionment, 47,700 inhabitants constitute the represen- 
tative number, and each state may send a representative to congress for 
every 47,700 inhabitants it may have. Now in making out this appor- 
tionment, three-fifths of the slaves are added to the free population ; 
and by this arrangement the slave-hohHiig states have twenty-five repre- 
sentatives more than they would have if three-fifths of the number of 
the slaves were not added in making out the apportionment. Now if 
slaves are property, as the slave laws declare, the slave-holders have no 
right to these twenty-five representatives on account of their slaves, any 
more than we at the north have to representatives on account of our 
sheep, cattle, bank stock, or any other property. The expenses for jiay- 
ing these representatives is at least oO,{)00 dollars each year, and this 
sum we help to pay. But our proportion of this sum is but a small part 
of the evil. 

We thereby submit ourselves to the influence of southern legislation. 
We allow the slave-holding states to have the influence of two hun- 
dred THOUSAND legal voters, (and the number is constantly increasing,) 
which they have not got, in the choice of the president and vice-presi- 
dent ; and of course in every executive measure and appointment, and in 
every law, resolution or measure of congress. This influence, I say, we 
allow the south to have which they have no just right to if their slaves 
are property as they consider them. Consider further the character of 
this influence. Gov. M'Duffie, in a message to the legislature of South 
Carolina, said : " No community ever existed without domestic servitude, 
and we may confidently assert that none ever will. In the very nature 
of things, there must be classes of persons to discharge all the difteient 
offices of society from the highest to the lowest. Some of these oflices 
are regarded as degrading, though they must and will be performed. 
When these oflices are performed by members of the political com- 
munity a dangerous element is obviously introduced into the body politic." 
We, my hearers, we farmers and mechanics, who labor with our hands, 
are 'a dangerous element in the body politic' ! It is dangerous to allow 
us to vote, and therefore we ought to be slaves and let our rich neigh- 
bors vote for us. This is 'democracy' ! But let us follow the Governor 
a little further. "It will be fortunate [?] for the non-slaveholding states 
if they are not, in less than a quarter of a century, driven to the adoption 
of a similar institution," [to slavery] '' or to take refuge from robbery and 
anarchy under a military despotism. * * * In a word, the institution 
of domestic slavery supersedes the order of nobility" by creating the 
slave-holders themselves a nobility and the laborers the slaves, or serfs, I 
suppose must be added, to make the sense clear. Mr. Leigh, of Vir- 
ginia, said, in 1S29, " I ask gentlemen to say whether they believe that 
those who depend on their daily subsistence can, or do ever, enter into 
our political affairs? They never do, never will, never can." "How 
can he get wisdom, that holdeth the plough, that driveth oxen, and is 
occupied in the labors, and whose talk is of bullocks .^" asks Professor 
Dew, of William and Mary's College, Virginia. 

iVre these our principles, or have we so much sympathy with and love 
for them, that we wish to have those whose exalted notions may aspire 



30 

to and adopt such principles and feelings, make laws for usf Are we 
submitting to southern legislation already ? Are we resigning 
the legislative power into their hands from a conviction of their 
superior wisdom and patriotism ? We give them twenty-five represen- 
tatives, the influence of two hundred thousand legal voters, as a consid- 
eration for such views, for such superior political wisdom, for such 
elevated, humane democracy ! 

The Hon. Charles Shepard, member of congress from North-Carolina, 
in a letter to his constituents, December 20, 1838, says, if the slave-hold- 
ing states will be true to themselves " they can ^ive laws to the govern- 
ment." Yes, brethren of New-England, whose fathers fought and bled 
for our liberties in tlie Revolution, the aristocratic slave-holding south, who 
hold that all labor is disreputable, and that every laborer, every farmer 
and mechanic, are, or should be slaves, subject to the will of the monied 
few, boast that they ' can give laws to the government.' Such men boast 
that they can make laws for us. Good God ! shall it be so ? Are we will- 
ing to wear the yoke and the chain ? Will you dance to the cracking of 
the master's whip? Are we prepared to see our wives and daughters 
prostituted before our eyes — as the wives and daughters of the Africans 
now are at the south ? Parents and children, husbands and wives, 
brothers and sisters, will you consent to be torn from one another, and 
be subjected to the avarice, the cruelty, and the lust of a merciless owner ? 
This is what the Africans now suffer, and this is what the southerners 
think ought to be our condition, and boast that they can make our laws. 
It is no wonder that they call us ' dough-faced northerners' while we are 
insensible to such threats. They turn to us, and say, ' Don't stir ; if you 
do we'll dissolve the Union' : they then turn to the south and say, ' Come 
on my boys, we'll chain every one of the northern dough-faces ; we'll 
give laws to the government ; we'll be lords and they shall work for us. 

Again, we are bound by the constitution, to go ourselves to-morrow or 
any day when we may be called for, to uphold slavery by force. Southern 
men have boasted that we are obliged to go and put down their slaves 
if they should rebel. Herein, they confess, is their only hope of safety. 
They cannot take care of themselves without us. It is strange that our 
fathers, while they were yet smarting from the wounds of the Revolution, 
should have bound themselves to assume a more unjust position to the 
Africans than England had assumed to us — and that they should have 
bound themselves to go and butcher the Africans for actingthe very same 
part against oppression which they tiiemselves had won so much glory in 
acting. 

Slavery interferes with our representatives in congress. It exposes 
them to assassination and duels for discharging their official duties. The 
Hon. John Q,. Adams sfiid, in the house of representatives, that he had 
received threats of assassination and challenges to a duel, as often as 
once a day for a number of weeks, and this too for discharging his duty 
as a representative. Say, New-Hampshire, does slavery do you no harm, 
when it has made one of your representatives, one of the men you had 
trusted with your honor and your rights, condescend to an act that will 
make the name of Atherton stink till 'tis forgotten ? Ask the wife and 
children of the murdered Lovejoy if we suffer nothing from slavery ? 
Ask the many who have been mobbed and whipped, tarred and feathered, 



31 

and murdered even, for being, or being suspected of being, abolitionists 
— ask them the question, Do we suffer nothing from the existence of 
slavery at the south ? 

The very fact that persons at the north dare not, or cannot with 
safety, speak their opinions, proves that we do suffer more evils from 
slavery than we who are in the midst of them can specify. Did we suffer 
nothing from slavery there would be no opposition to a free discussion of 
the subject. It is the wounded bird that flutters. So great is the oppo- 
sition to a discussion of the subject, that one may not breathe the word 
'liberty' to the north wind even, lest it whistle tones of freedom on the 
southern plantations. The fact that congress dares not, or will not, per- 
mit among themselves the discussion of a question of the most vital im- 
portance to our government, nor allow the people to petition them upon 
it, is the most alarming thing to every good citizen that could well be 
presented. 

1 will not undertake to specify the evils we suffer from the existence 
of slavery in our country. It would be like counting the sands of Sahara 
to prove that they are numerous. 

It is no uncommon thing that the free black citizens of the north are 
taken, under false pretences, and sold into slavery. Every black citizen 
that may go on board a vessel, in any capacity whatever, is imprisoned, 
fined, sold into slavery, one or more of them, whenever the vessel touches 
upon the coast of a slave holding state. The pretence for these laws is, that 
the presence of free blacks makes the slaves discontented (what, the ' hap- 
py,' 'contented' slave discontented !) and exposes the southerners to an 
insurrection of the slaves. We have in our free states many black mer- 
chants who own merchant vessels, manned completely by free blacks. 
Now, one of these vessels cannot trade with any southern port. If one 
of them should be driven into a slave holding port by storm, or from any 
necessity whatever, every man on board would be sold into slavery. 

Any one must be very ignorant of the political history of this country 
not to see the influence of the domineering spirit of the south. When 
they cannot carry their measures by fair and reasonable means, they will 
resort to any means to carry their point. Take an illustration. In the 
house of representatives, on the 21st of Dec. 1837, when Mr. Slade of 
Vt. was speaking upon slavery, and dissecting it before the eyes of the 
house, the southern members determined to put him down through the 
instrumentality of the speaker, and after resorting to every means to put 
him down with a show of order and respect for the rules of the house, 
and faihng in that, several southern members demanded the south- 
ern delegations to retire from the hall. The speaker was driven to sus- 
pend the rules of the house, and the discussion was stopped by a mob of 
the southern members of the house of representatives. On the next 
morning was presented and carried Patton's resolution against ' reading, 
referring, printing or acting upon petitions' concerning slavery. 

Thus when t!ic southern delegations in the house could carry their 
point by no other means, they would resort to a mob. Some of our 
northern men, wishing to have the south lie quiet as a stepping stone for 
them to ascend upon to office, have mortgaged themselves to the south 
and to slavery. Others are too quiet, too much lovers of order and the 
Union, to make any resistance. The south are united upon the subject 



of slavery, and are determined to sacrifice everything that will not with 
itself involve them in ruin, to slavery. It is not so much an idol that 
they worship as a mistress that they keep, and by whose charms they are 
bound and made willing to do any desperate acts, to sacrifice principle, 
humanity and all, whatsoever she may demand. We, rather than liave 
any 'fuss' about it, while we are the majority, consent to a political non- 
existence, or exist only to subserve them. The child rules the tame sub- 
missive father. 

It is sometimes said that the agitation of the subject of slavery will 
be dangerous to our country. It may be. It is sometimes the case 
that the amputation of a limb kills the patient. But then he could not 
have lived long without the operation, and in that was his only hope. 
But so far from considering the agitation of this subject dangerous to 
the country, am I, that 1 believe it will be one of the most effectual 
means of saving it. It will be as salt to the corrupt and corrupting mass 
of public sentiment. I do verily believe that the amount of moral sen- 
timent that will be called out and nurtured into being by the abolition 
enterprize will be a prop, and so far as I can see, almost the only prop 
to our tottering republic. Great subjects call forth great men and all the 
greatness of little men. If there be not something set on foot to call out 
and exalt the moral sentiment of the nation and raise us above political 
intrigue, selfish grasping, and the gambling speculations so rife in this 
country, it is as sure as fate that the doom of our country is sealed. Who 
has witnessed the progress of affairs for the last few years without being 
sick at heart from seeing so much deadness of the moral and religious 
sentiment? We have confidence in the honesty and integrity of men no 
farther than it is for their interest to be honest and upright ; and there 
are hardly any men in whom it would be safe to put any further confi- 
dence. Unless something can be done to arrest this downward onrush 
of the people, the days of our republic are numbered. Unless something 
can be done to purify the moral atmosphere and restore integrity and 
patriotism, we may prepare the dirge of our institutions, for it must soon 
be sung. 

Now there is no subject before the American people that reaches down 
so deep into principle and righteousness, and will interest so deeply so 
many people as abolition. I hope and trust this subject will take such 
hold upon their hearts that it will raise them above selfishness, above 
avarice, above grasping at the spoils of political victory, and the bribery 
and corruption that is everywhere practiced upon the franchise of this 
people, to something near the virtues of the fathers of the Revolution. 
If this or something else does not raise us, as a people, our fate is certain. 
As sure as day follows night, and the revolving earth brings round the 
hasty years, so sure scenes of dissolution, anarchy and bloodshed from 
which the sickened imagination turns gasping for breath, must come up- 
on us, unless something be done toexalt& purify the moral & religious sen- 
timent of the people. And if these scenes do come, woe to those who must 
witness them. Extremes meet, and we shall go to despotism more abso- 
lute and galling than the sun now shines upon. All the noble and vir- 
tuous in the land will prefer liberty in heaven to slavery on earth, and will 
rejoice in an occasion to fall honorably beneath the destroying sword, 
while the more timid and weaknerved will have their lips sealed and their 



33 

hands bound till the fires of resentment smoulder their hearts to cinders, 
and their souls are freed by death. Oh ! that 1 had a voice that could 
be heard the length and breadth of the country, I would not cease day 
nor night to sound the alarm. Every word should be a dagger-thrust at 
the heart of the monster slavery, that has tapped our veins and is sucking 
the life-blood of our country. Yet, notwithstanding all these evils that 
we now suffer, and all that the lowering prospect threatens, we hug the 
porcupine slavery to our bosoms while the blood is streaming from an hun- 
dred wounds. Said the Greek poet, "whom the gods intend to ruin 
they first make insane" — and is not the insanity of our nation upon this 
subject but the prelude to coming ruin ? When I look at this state of 
things, I rejoice to know that Washington, Franklin, Jay, Pinckney, Hen- 
ry and Jefferson are in their graves. 1 rejoice to feel sure that they have 
finished their voyage of life in safety ; that they are beyond the danger 
of corruption ; that their sainted names cannot be tainted by the mean- 
ness and corruption of our age. But m" joy has somewhat of sadness ; 
for it does seem that if those noble spirits were with us, corruption would 
blush and flee their presence. It does seem that they might again breathe 
life and energy into our sick and shattered institutions. It does seem 
that they might raise us from wallowing in corruption. But well for 
them the grave will not give up its dead. Their bodies must sleep in 
silence and peace ; and if one ever wishes that the dead should not know 
what the living do, it is now. When I contemplate the statue of Wash- 
ington, as it stands in simple majesty, witnessing these things that are now 
witnessed in our country, I seem to see a bloody sweat roll down that 
pallid face — I pause — and wonder that the very marble does not break 
silence and shake the Capitol with the thunder of its rebuke. 

I do not wish to be a prophet of evil. I do not wish to disturb the 
silence and quiet that hangs over the unknown future ; else I could draw 
a picture, which should want nothing of probability, that would make 
your blood curdle in your veins. But the future is all uncertain. We 
commit it to God. It will be, under his providence, what we make it. 
J^ow is ever the pivot upon which the whole future turns at our will. It 
is for us to decide whether we will have the south a slaughter-house for 
our friends and neighbors. It is for us to decide whether the south must 
be drenched with blood, and its fair fields become a pool of bloody mire, 
stagnating in voiceless desolation. 

Now, will any one say that we must suffer all these things — see all 
this crime and cruelty, and can do nothing ? Will any one say that we, 
citizens of this free country — we who make the laws, must suffer such 
things by the laws, and can have no redress, we free men ? Are we then 
free, or the subjects of despotism ? It matters not whether it be a man 
called ' Despot,' or a piece of parchment called ' Constitution,' or an insti- 
tution called ' Slavery,' that binds us, if so be we are bound. But the 
case is not so bad as that. We can do something. We have both po- 
litical and moral rights to exercise in the case. 

And have justice and humanity no claims upon us, that we wait to be 
moved by considerations of self interest to take the part of the oppressed 
and do him justice ? Are we absolved from the obligation to " remem- 
ber those that are in bonds as bound with them : and those who 



34 

suffer adversity as being ourselves yet in the flesh," and therefore capa- 
ble of a fellow-feeling for their suiferings? 

VIII. It is the common understanding, that the slaves are, by the 
constitution of the United States, recognized as rightful property, and 
that the slave laws are agreeable to that instrument. I hardly hope 
to carry my audience with me, in the attempt that I have made to 
prove that the slave laws are unconstitutional. It seemed too much 
for me to believe at first myself But I could see no defect in the ar- 
gument, and was obliged to yield my assent. But this is not the com- 
mon opinion. I will therefore waive that consideration for a few mo- 
ments, and take the subject upon the common understanding of the 
matter, and ask the question, What can we do for the emancipation of 
the slaves ? 

We are slave-holders ourselves, and we can free those we hold. We 
hold twenty-six thousand slaves ourselves, by the laws that we make, 
in the District of Columbia, and in the United States' territories. 
These twenty-six thousand slaves, I say, we hold in bondage ourselves 
by the laws we have made and can repeal. They are held by the laws 
of congress. Now majorities always rule, and the free states have and 
have always had a majority in congress — therefore they could have 
prevented or enacted any law ui.'on which they should be united in 
their action. Thus it is that the free states and every voter of the 
free states are individually resi)onsible for holding these slaves ; there- 
fore it is that every citizen of us is a slave-holder. Now the free states 
have a majority in congress, and congress can abolish slavery in the 
District of Columbia and the Territories, and the internal slave trade, 
and therefore the free states are responsible for the sin of holding these 
twenty-six thousand slaves, and for the traffic in thirty thousands of 
our own inhabitants every 3^ear.* 

We can abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. The constitu- 
tion says that congress shall "have exclusive power to legislate in all 
cases whatsoever" over the District of Columbia. If now the aboli- 
tion of slavery be within the sphere of legislative action, the power to 
abolish it is here granted to congress. Now to prove that the abolition 
of slavery is within the sphere of legislative action, we have the au- 
thority derived from all the northern states, the South American re- 
publics, and the kingdoms of Europe. If congress cannot abolish 
slavery in the District of Columbia and the territories, then no legis- 
lative body can — it cannot be done — and here we have the anomaly of 
the people, where the people are sovereign, suffering an evil which they, 
the sovereign authority, cannot remove — and are not allowed to act 
upon. 

It is sometimes said, that Maryland and Virginia may have made 

* If a bill should bo pnssod abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia and the United 
Stat<'s' territories, and the internal slave trade, the president would have the power of veto 
upon it, and that would probably defeat the bill if he should exercise it. since the bill CfixM 
not be carried by a majority of two-thirds of both houses. I take no notice, however, of presi- 
dent Van Buren's pledge to oppose any such bill, as he would doubtless change his mind 
when he saw a majority of the voters in the nation were in favor of the bill. He is a demo- 
crat, and has too much respect for the opinion of the people ever to oppose it. 



35 

some reservation of the control over slavery in this territory when they 
ceded it to the general government. But they made no such reserva- 
tion. They could not ; for congress had no right to allow it. It would 
have been a violation of the express language of the constitution to 
have allowed any reservation of legislative authority whatever, or to 
have consented to any condition by which the authority of congress 
should be in any way abridged. 

It is further said, that it would be a breach of faith to abolish slave- 
ry in the District of Columbia, while Maryland and Virginia are slave- 
holding states. But there certainly is no breach of faith in the exer- 
cise of power given knowingly, and with the expectation that it would 
be exercised if there should be occasion. When Maryland and Vir- 
ginia resigned into the hands of congress all legislative authority over 
the District of Columbia, they knew that they were giving them au- 
thority to abolish slavery in that District, if congress should see fit to 
do it ; and it certainly can be no breach of faith to exercise that au- 
thority. 

2. Again, congress has the authority to abolish the internal slave-trade. 
The constitution says that "congress shall have power to regulate 
commerce between the states." Now while slaves are considered as prop- 
erty, they are articles of commerce. It is said that congress may 
regulate commerce, but not abolish it. True. But then to abolish or 
prohibit the traffic in one article — and slaves are but one article — is not 
to abolish commerce itself, but to regulate it. Had the language of 
the constitution been such as to give congress the power to regulate 
the slave trade between the states, there might have been some room 
to say that congress might regulate, but could not abolish, the slave 
trade. But while the slave trade is only a part of the commerce be- 
tween the states, which congress has power to regulate, congress may 
regulate the whole by abolishing or cutting ofl" a part. 

Congress has precisely the same power — it is given in the same lan- 
guage and in the same clause of the constitution — to abolish the inter- 
nal slave trade that it had to abolish the foreign slave trade. The na- 
tion promised that congress should not abolish the foreign slave trade 
before ISOS. But by this very promise they declared that congress 
would have had the power to have done it, if there had been no such 
promise. When the jTomise was out, they did exercise their power and 
forbid the importation of slaves. Here congress have virtually declared 
by their own act, that they understand that they have the power to 
abolish the internal slave trade. 

Here, then, in these two ways, we, every citizen of us, have the un- 
questionable political right to do something for the abolition of slavery. 
I know that men are exceedingly fond of insisting upoji our national 
legislature's being one of ' limited powers' when the subject of slavery 
is brought before them. But they may deceive themselves, or the 
people, to their own infamy, so long as they please. The light is 
streaming abroad over the country, and we trust that ' the sober second 
thought of the people will be right and efficient.' Time will bring 
the matter straight, and well is it for him who is beforehand with time 
in this matter. 



36 

But I do not feel content — it will not be doing justice to my own 
conviction, to leave the matter here — to leave our sphere of political 
action thus circumscribed within such narrow bounds. I will not go 
about to prove that congress has the power to abolish slavery in the 
states ; for that would be granting that slavery is constitutional. I 
will enter into no argument to prove that it is right for the national 
legislature — that it has the power — to do justice — to give the inhabit- 
ants their dues. If the slave-laws and slave trade are unconstitutional, 
as I believe and think I have clearly shown above, then we through 
congress not only have the power to abolish slavery in the states, but 
it is our duty so to do. If the masters oppress the slaves unconstitu- 
tionally — if they have taken away their constitutional rights and priv- 
ileges — then we are bound as citizens to take the part of the slave, and 
see that that justice which the constitution guarantees to him be done 
him. No one will deny but what we are bound to go and suppress 
an insurrection of the slaves, if there should be one. No one will deny 
but what we are bound to go and protect the master against the slave, 
and are we not as much bound (I speak politically) to protect the slave 
against the master, and see that the master does not take away his 
rights ? How exceedingly fond people are of speaking of their lim- 
ited powers and means when they are indisposed to use them ! I do 
most sincerely believe, that we, as citizens, are bound, by a fair inter- 
pretation of our political duties and the engagements made by the con- 
federative constitution, to go and demand that the slaves should have 
every right and privilege secured to them, either expressly or impliedly, 
by a fair construction of the language and principles of the constitu- 
tion, and that until we do this the sin of slave-holding in all its mag- 
nitude is chargeable upon us. 

We are just as much bound to protect the inhabitants of our coun- 
try from illegal oppression within the borders of our own country, as 
we should be if they were thus oppressed in a foreign country. When 
some three score of our citizens were enslaved in Algiers, we waged 
war against that power to protect our citizens ; but now, while three 
millions are enslaved in our own country, we are not ready to do any 
thing, and are told that we can do nothing. But be not deceived, God 
will not judge according to men's judgment. 

But for those who are not prepared, as yet, to go the length of the 
above statement, I would say that we have an undoubted moral right 
to think and speak and exert our moral influence. We have an unde- 
niable right to convince the southern slave-holders that they are com- 
mitting a sin in holding their fellow beings in bondage. 

Thomas Jefferson wrote in August, 1785, to Dr. Price, of England, 
to have him interpose and exert all the moral influence he could. 
" Could you," says he, " trouble yourself with our welfare, no man is 
more able to give aid than yourself" "Be not discouraged. North- 
ward of the Chesapeake you may find here and there an opponent to 
abolition, as you may find here and there a robber and a murderer, but 
in no great numbers." He calls the abolition cause "an interesting 
spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice and oppression." I take 



37 

pleasure in quoting an authority justly held in so high an estimation. 
If, then, it was right for a foreigner to interfere and exert a moral in- 
fluence, it certainly must be so for our own citizens. 

If we have no political right or duty to interfere with slavery in the 
southern states, we certainly have a moral and religious right. We 
have the same right that Jesus had to cleanse the temple, which the 
Jews had made a den of thieves. We have the same right that Paul 
had to preach against the fornication of the Corinthians and the idola- 
try of Ephesus and Athens. 

It would be much better for us to go to the south and preach our 
doctrines there. But they will not hear us. They will not allow a 
word to be said in public against their favorite institution. 

Senators White and Grundy, from Tennessee, declared in the senate 
chamber that they would encourage the Lynch laws being executed 
upon every abolitionist found in their state. White defended the 
whipping, with twenty lashes, one Amos Dresser, without any law to 
justify it, and without trial by jury, merely for being an abolitionist, 
when it was not proved and could not be proved that he had said, or 
that he intended to say, a word upon the subject in the state. Senator 
Lumpkin, from Georgia, said that if abolitionists went to Georgia " they 
would get caught.'''' Preston, of South-Carolina, said that "if an abo- 
litionist came within their borders, they would hang him, notwithstand- 
ing the opposition of the United States and all the governments on 
earth." If, then, we cannot apply our remedy to the diseased part, it 
must bo taken into the system by the mouth, and we must trust to the 
general circulation to carry it to the diseased part. But we are by no 
means free from the disease ourselves. There is no such thing as the 
hand or the foot being completely decayed and the man suffer no harm. 
All the members sympathize with the diseased part. 

But although the south will not allow one to preach against slavery 
there, there are a great many abolitionists at the south. Their number 
is increasing fast. Some of the most zealous and effective abolitionists 
were once southern slave-holders, — men and women of the highest 
standing among their citizens. Among them are James G. Birney, 
formerly Solicitor General of Alabama; A. E.,and S. Grimke, whose 
brother, the Hon. Thomas S. Grimke, was one of the most prominent 
men of South-Carolina. There are hundreds of others at the south. 
Their names are not given to the public, for that would expose them in 
their lives and property. No, it is not safe for one to think as he pleases, 
on some subjects, in this free country. 

IX. Perceiving these spheres of influence open to them, some friends 
of liberty, justice and humanity, commenced the abolition enterprise ; 
and although it seems, to the impatient hopes of the zealous, to be a 
slow movement, yet its rapidity and success are hardly equalled by the 
rapidity with which any other cause of any thing near its importance 
has progressed, in the world's history. I am not able to fix upon any 
date or event which I could regard as the commencement of the enter- 
prise — whether to consider the imprisonment of Garrison, at Baltimore, 
or the establishment of the Liberator, in Boston, in the winter of 1831, 



38 

or something else, as the commencement of the abolition enterprise, I 
know not. But it is of very little consequence. The enterprise com- 
menced about that time. 

In 1832, the New-England Anti-Slavery Society was formed at 
Boston. It consisted then, I believe, of only about a dozen young 
men, who were termed, by way of scorn and reproach, ' ardent young 
men' — ' incendiaries' — ' fanatics' — ' hot-headed zealots' — ' disorganizers,' 
&c., &c. 

In December, 1833, a convention of about sixty delegates, from 
various parts of the country, met at Philadelphia and formed the 
American Anti-Slavery Society. There arc now auxiliary societies in 
most of the northern states, and also one in the slave-holding state of 
Kentucky. 

I have not time or material here from which to give you a full history . 
of the progress of the abolition cause. I will only notice a few things. 
In the winter of 1834 and '35, the prejudice was so strong against the 
abolitionists in Boston, that they could hardly get a place to hold a 
meeting through fear of a mob. They have since gradually won their 
way, until they have now about fifteen hundred societies, and probably 
not less than two hundred thousand persons who have, or are ready to 
subscribe to their principles, and join with them in their measures. 

The cause was never increasing faster. Such success in what Jef- 
ferson called " the interesting spectacle of justice in conflict with 
avarice and oppression" is most encouraging to its friends, and should 
warn all who are not its friends to ''refrain from opposing these men, 
lest haply ye be found to even fight against God. If this counsel, or 
this work, be of men, it will come to nought of itself; but if it be of 
God, ye cannot overthrow them." 

The discussion of slavery and the determined perseverance of the 
abolitionists soon called forth a good deal of bitter and angry opposition. 
The evils which appeared to be necessarily consequent upon an agita- 
tion of the subject were so great as to intimidate many. I will notice 
some of these objections to the abolitionists, and to agitating the subject 
in any form at the north. I have already considered our ?-ight to do 
something ; but many who would assent to the right would still ques- 
tion the ' erpedienctf of exercising it. Do they " remember those in 
bonds as hound with them'^ ? Others doubt if the course the aboli- 
tionists are taking will produce any beneficial effects to the slave or to 
the country. 

It is said that a discussion of the subject of slavery may dissolve 
the Union. The south threaten it. It is neither certain nor probable 
that a discussion of the subject will dissolve the Union. The south 
dare not dissolve the Union, and if we would retort the threat they 
would stop their mouths and tremble. The south, knowing our attach- 
ment to the Union, a)id our timid, submissive tempers, would make use 
of these things to promote their own ends. But among themselves 
they turn pale, and the lip quivers at the thought. Men threaten others 
with what they most dread themselves. Had I time, I could bring an 
overwhelming amount of proof to show that the southerners, when out 



39 

of the hearing of northern ears, confess that they dare not dissolve the 
Union. The editor of the ' Maryville (Tenn.) Intelligencer,' in his paper 
October, 1835, says of the slaves at the south, " tlieir condition is 
second 07ily to that of the wretched creatures in hell." In a sub- 
sequent number, he says, "We of the south are surrounded by a dan- 
gerous class of beings, who, if they could but once entertain the idea 
that immediate death would not be their portion, would re-act the St. 
Domingo tragedy. But a consciousness that a ten-fold force tvould 
gather from the four corners of the united states and slaughter 
them, keeps them in subjection. But to the non-slave-holding 
states we are indebted for a permanent safe-guard against 
insurrection. Without their assistance the white populatio?i of the 
southern states tvould be too weak to quiet that innate desire for 
liberty which is ever ready to act itself otit.'" Yet these are the slaves 
of whom the Reverend J. C. Postell, of South-Carolina, said : " Contrast- 
ing the condition of white slaves in New-England with our slaves in 
the south, is like comparing Egyptian bondage under Pharaoh's task- 
masters with millenial glory — Mild slavery at the south is heaven on 
earth to the tyranny of the spindle at the north.''^ A southern member 
of congress was over-heard to say, immediately after the house ad- 
journed on the ever memorable 21st of December, 1837, when Mr. 
Slade, of Vermont, was put down whilst speaking against slavery, 
" We have seen our weakness, we have seen * * * the unconquerable 
attachment of all the south, except one or two men in South-Carolina, 
to the Union. Let slavery be aboHshed in the District of Columbia, 
let the capital be given up to free negroes, the District of Columbia 
sunk, and I shall never give up the Union but with my life." These 
are the men — these who look to us for ' a ten-fold force to slaughter 
the slaves' if they should rise against their oppressors, as our fathers 
arose against Great Britain — these men who have an ' unconquerable 
attachment to the Union' — these men who ' v/ill not give up the Union 
but with their lives,' are they, who threaten us with a dissolution of 
the Union. These men, who have every thing to lose and nothing 
to gain by the act, threaten us, who have nothing to lose but much to 
gain, with a dissolution of the Union ! and we are scared into silence 
by the threat ! 

" Be stirring as the times ; be fire with fire, 
Threaten tlie threatener, and out-face the brow 
Of bragging horror." 

But, then, if it come to the worst, we are not bound to dissolve the 
Union, or any thing else, rather than do injustice ? Are we not bound 
to ' leave all,' if need be, for righteousness' sake ? They'll dissolve the 
Union, they say : would it not be better to dissolve the earth itself into 
misty vapor, than to disobey God ? It would be better to have the 
whole south sink, and the huge monsters of the briny deep gambol 
over their cotton fields ; yea, it were better that the earth itself should 
fly from its orbit into the wintry regions of everlasting night, than that 
its inhabitants should continue to insult the God of heaven by enslav- 
ing his children. 



40 

But are the abolitionists responsible for the evils of agitating the 
question, be they what they may ? Is it not rather he that has done 
the wrong who is responsible for its consequences, than he who dis- 
covers and reproves it ? 

It is frequently said that we at the north do not know anything 
about slavery ; we have never seen it, and know nothing about it ex- 
cept by report. The people of the south, who live there in its midst 
and have the best opportunity of knowing its character, do not regard 
it as a great evil. Northern men when they go there become slave- 
holders themselves, and lose all their prejudice against the institution 
when they become acquainted with it. 

It is true that northern men do frequently lose their abhorrence of 
slavery and become slave-holders themselves, when they go to the 
south. It is true that many of the southerners regard, or pretend to 
regard, slavery as no evil, but a blessing, — " the corner-stone of our 
republican edifice ;" but they do not all so regard it. The opinion of 
the southerners is so different in different individuals, and at different 
times, to suit the occasion and purpose that the speaker or writer may 
have in view, that we can hardly say what it is. It is one thing or 
another, just as you may happen to quote from one man or another, or 
from opinions expressed on one occasion or another, by the same man 
even. But suppose it to be true, as it is assumed in the above state- 
ment, that the south do not regard slavery as an evil, moral or polit- 
ical — that they do not regard it as injustice and cruelty — that they do 
not regard it as sin against the most High God : what follows ? what 
inference will you draw ? Who are of this opinion ? What part of 
the population of the south have you consulted, to receive this opinion 
from them ; those; who reap all the benefits of slavery, or those who 
drink the cup of its bitterness ? When in the world's history has it 
been known that tyrants have preached liberty and democracy ? When 
has the oppressor thought oppression an evil ? Ask the oppressed and 
enslaved if slavery be no evil. Let their voice be heard in a thing 
that so nearly concerns them ; and if they confess, as you may find now 
and then a case when one will confess that slavery is no evil, we must 
feel that we have imbruted them beyond having a sense of their wrong ; 
we have clean quenched the candle which the Lord lighted up in their 
souls at their creation. We shall then see how much greater is the sin 
of slavery than it otherwise would be, and how much more urgent the 
necessity for doing something. But the case is not so bad as that, as 
is proved by the fact that hundreds risk life and suffer the extremes of 
hunger and fatigue every year, to cross the free states to Canada, where 
oppression cannot reclaim them. 

But what inference do you draw from the fact that northern men 
become slave-holders ? Do we not know that vice is a monster which 

" seen too oft and familiar with its face 
We first pity, then endure, then embrace" ? 

Have not many of us, who have not been to the south, grown so 
' familiar with its face' that we not only endure, but pity, and are 



41 

almost ready to embrace ? It is this very deadness of the moral senti- 
ment, not only at the south, but also at the north, that is the greatest 
discouragement to the friends of the slave, and the strong hold of hope 
for the slave holder. 

The violent opposition that the subject meets with from the people 
of the north is, in the estimation of many, a further objection to agi- 
tating the subject here. It verily seems to me a reason why we should 
agitate the subject, and shake off the oppression that would stop free 
discussion, and dam up the channels of intelligence. It is time that 
the right to free discussion were established beyond fear of mobs. It 
is time that people should be convinced that brute force cannot put 
down the truth, or shut its light from shining in upon the dark scenes 
of their guilt and shame. Every citizen should come forward to sus- 
tain the right to free discussion, which is threatened and assailed, even 
if he do not care anything for the subject discussed. It is time that 
force and the animal passions should give place to argument and con- 
science, upon the world-arena, where the great questions of right and 
duty are decided for sociuiy. Therefore it is that every thoughtful 
and reasonable man should favor the agitation of this question ; at least 
so far as defending free discussion from the violence of mobs is 
concerned. Meanwhile tin's violence does not, after all, appear to the 
abolitionists as the most diycctu'aging symptom that could be. It shows 
that we are deeply interested in slavery. It shows that we are doing 
wrong in upholding it, and that v\^e are determined to do wrong so long 
as we can profit by it. It shows that we suffer from slavery, other- 
wise there would be no opposition to discussing the subject. But this 
very violence, like the sick man's pain, is a favorable symptom. It 
shows that there is life yet in him. We must expect that the patient 
will be worse while the medicine is operating than he appeared before 
he took it. 

I will now state the principles of the abolitionists, and the measures 
by which they propose to accomplish their object — entire emancipa- 
tion. 

The fundamental principle of the abolitionists is, that slavery is a 
sin ; it is contrary to humanity and justice, and therefore contrary to 
the laws of God. It is making slaves of God's freemen. It is there- 
fore rebellion against his almighty sovereignty. Our slaves are chil- 
dren of the same heavenly Father with ourselves. We have taken 
them from the work God gave them to do, and put them to do ours, to 
bear our burden, that we may be idle and enjoy the luxuries that their 
labor can procure. We have robbed the slave of his divine patrimony ; 
we have taken from him the portion of the good things of this life, 
which God gives to all his rational creatures, and given him, instead 
thereof, bonds, stripes and unrequited toil. We take, so far as we can, 
all the joy from his cup of life, and give him instead thereof, all the 
bitterness of oiirs. We spoil our brethren that we may enrich our- 
selves with their goods. Some of the abolitionists hold that the Afri- 
cans are by nature equal to ourselves ; and are now inferior only through 
the influence of education and circumstances. But it is not on that 



42 

ground that they claim for the slave that freedom which God gave 
him, and we have robbed him of. They demand his freedom, not be- 
cause he is our equal, but because he is a man — a being whom God 
made free, capable of knowing good from evil, and so a moral, respon- 
sible and immortal being, capable of progress in everything that is good 
and holy, — and because that by enslaving him we take away the 
means of that progress, and thereby prevent him from accomplishing 
the purpose of his being here on earth : we defeat, so far as we can, 
God's plan in creating him. 

This is the fundamental j)rincij)le of the abolitionists, and from this 
all the rest is derived. 

Their aim is the emancipation of the slaves, and they hold to imme- 
diate emancipation, not only because they believe it safe and expedi- 
ent, and that it would be better for both master and slave ; but because 
it is RIGHT ; it is a dictate of that moral sentiment, which to disobey 
is to disobey God, Believing in the perfection and entireness of the 
retributions of God, they feel assured that no evil so great can result 
from doing right, and lulien it is right, as must result from continuing 
to sin, and insult the Majesty of heaven by stealing his freemen and 
impressing them into our service. They tremble when they think of 
this high-handed rebellion against the King of heaven. They raise 
their voices and cry aloud lest the almighty Justice, whose retributions 
slumber not, sweep them and their fellow-countrymen with the besom 
of destruction. 

The measures of the abolitionists are such as the nature of the case 
dictates. The slaves are held by law ; therefore the abolitionists seek 
to produce such a change in public opinion, and elect such men to 
office, as will effect such a change in the laws by which slaves are now 
held, as that they shall be no longer held by law. Here is their chief 
measure ; and so far as this measure is concerned, abolition is a polit- 
ical thing, and no farther. There is no design to advance the inter- 
ests of one or another of the present political parties. In so far as emanci- 
pation is to be effected only by a modification of the laws to that effect, 
abolitionists must carry their principles to the ballot-box. This is one 
of their legitimate and necessary means of effecting their object. And 
we northerners, who have consented, and even helj ed to fasten the 
chains upon the slave, are in duty bound to help unloose his bands and 
let him go free. 

Hence the great work the abolitionists have to do is to change pub- 
lic opinion upon the subject of slavery. This they seek to do by 
lectures, pamphlets, papers, societies, reports, and all the ordinary 
means used to effect the public mind. When this is done, and as fast 
as it is done, they will change the views and policy of legislative 
bodies, so that they will act upon the subject and enact such laws and 
adopt such measures as may be most conducive to the freedom of the 
lave. 

Believing that congress has authority over slavery in the District of 
Columbia and the United States territories, and over the internal slave- 
trade, they aim to take every fair and lawful means to get abolitionists 



43 

into congress, and to use every fair and lawful means to influence them, 
and the body generally, after they get there. 

Beyond the District of Columbia, and the territories, and the internal 
slave trade, they do not, I believe, generally claim any political right to 
act. Their only measure then is, to operate upon public opinion in the 
southern states, so far as they can, and thus bring them to do, themselves, 
what the northern abolitionists claim no political right to do. 

It is one of the uniform principles of the abolitionists, to urge the slave 
to bear his slavery with patience and meekness until the day of his de- 
liverance come. While they have no doubt that if the slaves should 
rise, and some one place himself at their head and gain their freedom by 
force of arms, he would thereby earn for his name a place beside our 
own immortal Washington's on the rolls of fame, still they discourage 
insurrection, and mostly because they believe with the Quakers, that a 
resort to physical force, even in self defence, is unjustifiable. It is some- 
times said that the abolitionists seek to provoke the slaves to insurrec- 
tion. Nothing is more false and calumnious. The abolitionists are 
mostly ' peace men,' as they are called, and regard war, even defensive 
war, as contrary to the command, ' resist not evil.' No ; they seek the 
peaceful emancipation of the slaves, and that only. 

It is frequently said that the professed abolitionists carry things too 
far — that they are fanatical. But do not people perceive that this is in 
consequence of the opposition they meet with? If the river be obstructed 
it must rise till it can carry all before it. It is unavoidable that men who 
feel an undoubting confidence in the justice and righteousness of their 
cause, should be provoked to extremes by violent opposition. This is 
always the case. The people always think that the reformers of their 
age carry things to extremes. Yet it is almost always the case that fu- 
ture ages reverse this decision. The influence of opposition and per- 
secution is irresistible; and while we have men, and not angels or gods, 
to preach up our reformations, they will be driven by these influences to 
do and say many things that they otherwise might not have said. The 
persecutions that the abolitionists have suffered for opinion's sake, are 
beyond what you would believe, if I should relate them to you. They 
will form one of the darkest and most disgraceful pages in our country's 
history. They have been cast out of society, insulted in the streets, 
slandered and maligned in public prints, denied all places of assembling 
for their meetings, had their meetings disturbed by mobs and the houses 
in which they were held burnt down ; they have been whipped, tarred 
and feathered, dragged through the streets by mobs — they have had their 
dwellings forcibly entered, torn down and burnt with all their furniture 
before their eyes, and finally they have been murdered in the streets, and 
all this for doing what the law allows every man to do, and has engaged 
to defend him in doing it. The abolitionists have never provoked this law- 
less violence by first transgressing the laws themselves. No instance of 
this can be found. 

When we consider that the abolitionists have persevered, in the face of 
all this opposition and lawless persecution, does it not prove to us that 
they are no hypocrites, no self-interested partizans, but are honest and 
in earnest .? Does it not prove that they are moved by an irresistible 
spirit ? Can we wonder that they have sometimes gone to extremes and 



14 

taken violent measures, when such extremes of violence have been used 
against them? But, be it remembered that the abolitionists did not re- 
sort to violent and uncharitable measures and epithets first ; they did 
not resort to such things until they were driven to it. It is no part of 
their plan. Their plan was to enlighten the public mind concerning the 
great sin they were committing, and appeal to the consciences of men 
and set public opinion against slavery. 

The most sharp-sighted southerners saw their aim. They complained 
that "the moral sentiment of the world has been armed against them." 
John C. Calhoun says, " Do they (the south) expect the abolitionists will 
resort to arms, will commence a crusade to liberate the slaves by force? 

* * * Let me tell our friends of the south who differ from us, that 
the war which the abolitionists wage against us is of a very different char- 
acter and FAR MORE EFFECTIVE : it is Waged, not against our lives, but our 
CHARACTERS." Govcmor Hamilton, in his report to the legislature of 
South Carolina asks, "Are we to wait until our enemies have built up * 

* * a body of public opinjon against us which it would be almost 

IMPOSSIBLE TO RESIST WITHOUT SEPARATING OURSELVES FROM THE SO- 
CIAL SYSTEM OF THE REST OF THE WORLD?" Duff Grccn, cditor of the 
United States' Telegraph, printed at Washington, said in that paper, in 
November, 1835, " We are of those who believe the south has nothing 
to fear from servile war. We do not believe that the abolitionists intend, 
or could if they would, excite our slaves to insurrection. The danger of 
this is small. We believe that we have most to fear from the or- 
ganized ACTION UPON THE co.vsiJi r.xcEs (ttid feai's of the slave-holders 
themselves, from the insinuations of their dangerous heresies (!) into 
our schools, our pulpits and our domestic circles. It is only by alarm- 
ing the consciences of the weak and dijf'-.ising among our people a mof- 
BiD sensibility ou the question of slavery, that the abolitionists can ac- 
complish their object. Preparatory to this, they are laboring to saturate 
the non-slaveholding states with the belief that slavery is a sin against God. 
We must meet the question in all its bearings. We must satisfy the con- 
sciences, we must allay the fears of our people. We must satisfy them 
that slavery is of itself bight; that \t is not a sin against God; that 
it is not an evil, moral or political." In another paper the same editor 
says, " We hold that our sole reliance is on ourselves ; that we have most 
to fear from the gradual operation on public opinion among ourselves, 
and that those are the most insidious and dangerous invaders q/'owr rights 
and interests, who, coming to us in the guise of friendship, endeavor to 
persuade us that slavery is a sin, a curse, an evil. It is not true that 
the south sleep upon a volcano, that we are afraid to go to bed at night, 
that we are fearful of murder and pillage. Our greatest cause of 
apprehension is from the operation of the morbid sensibility which 
APPEALS TO THE CONSCIENCES OF otTR PEOPLE, and would make them the 
voluntary instruments of their own ruin." What confessions are these ! 
The south knowingly arrays itself in opposition and hostility to men 
who they acknowledge appeal to the consciences of men. The south, 
by their own confession, array themselves against the moral sentiment of 
the world ; against the consciences of men, and against God ! Oh ! who 
does not tremble for them, and cry, God be merciful and spare them 
canst thou forgive them ? they know what they do. 



45 

It is sometimes asked if the course the abohtionists are now taking, is 
the best, and is a going to effect any thing. I confess, not only that I 
can see no better course than the one they are taking, but that I can see 
no other possible course. There are many who object to this course, but 
I have never seen one who could point out a better, or even another, 
course. And making due allowances for the extravagances and improper 
things of all kinds that unavoidably accompany such movements against 
public opinion, I think there will be nothing in the course of the aboli- 
tionists that even the most fastidious can object to, unless he be really in 
favor of slave-holding, either for itself or its subserviency to some of his 
selfish aims. 

The success and effects thus far, of the enterprize, have been what 
were foreseen. It is sometimes asked. What have they gained ? Much ; 
very much. Two hundred thousand complete abolitionists, and two or 
three times that number thawed and tamed down so as to be considered 
more than half converted. They have got the public ready to hear with- 
out mobbing them. They have gained access to meeting-houses, and 
other places of public meeting. They have, in fine, got things into suc- 
cessful operation at the north, the only spot that will receive the leaven 
that is to leaven the whole lump. 

The effect upon the south has been what might have been expected. 
Slave-holding is founded upon the lower, animal nature — it receives no 
countenance from reason and conscience. That person who determines 
to hold a slave must be under the influence of his lower nature ; hence 
when you oppose slavery you call forth all the fury and foam ol" the bois- 
terous animal nature. When the slave-holders see that the abolitionists 
are by no means intimidated by their rage, but receive all as a matter of 
course, things that they had foreseen and provided for, they will think 
more seriously of the matter and change their position. Their animal 
nature is overcome by the undisturbed self-possession of the abolitionists, 
as the wild beast of the forest, or the scarcely less animal highwayman, is 
completely disarmed and overcome by the calm, self-possessed dignity of 
the higher moral nature. The south, seeing that the north are not to be 
scared by ' sound and fury, signifying nothing,' will take another course. 
When all else has failed, and the abolitionists are pressing upon them 
with constantly increasing numbers, the slave-holders will be obliged to 
discuss the subject upon moral grounds, and in the light of conscience. 
When they do that, slavery falls at once, and the object of the aboli- 
tionists, emancipation, is attained. They may disband their forces, and 
repose upon their laurels. 

At present, the southerners do not, generally, understand and appre- 
ciate the motives of the abolitionists. They cannot see what we are 
going to gain by emancipation. They flatter, beseech, threaten, just 
according to the mood they happen to be in ; or the mode they think 
will be most successful. Tiiey hear certain strange, fanatical things 
spoken of by the abolitionists, called justice, humanity, and conscience ; 
but they cannot see why they should value these so much more highly 
than the advantages, conveniences and luxuries of unpaid, permanent, 
hereditary ' help' ; who are, withal, so very submissive and obedient, as 
to seldom attempt to have a will or an opinion of their own. 

X. I will ta.x your patience no farther at present than to notice a few 



46 

objections to tlie object that the abolitionists have in view. These ob- 
jections arise from a consideration of the evils that it is feared may come 
from immediate emancipation. 

We expect that evils will result from emancipation. It is not to be 
expected that two hundred and twenty years of injustice, cruelty and sin, 
can be atoned for without sutfering. But, then, of what kind are the 
evils that will result from immediate emancipation ? Are they sins, or 
merely inconveniences ? They are merely the evils — the inconveniences 
— brought upon us by our passed sins. They are no sins, to be followed 
by the unslumbering retributions of justice. We commit no sin by free- 
ing the slave. Is it not, therefore, better to suffer all the evils of imme- 
diate emancipation, be they what they may, than to continue to sin by 
continuing slavery ? Every day that we delay emancipation, the difficul- 
ties ill the way of it, and the evils of it when it shall have come, increase. 
The evils attending the abolition of slavery are great ; but we have brought 
them upon ourselves. The Africans did not come here of themselves, 
and inflict themselves upon us. No, we brought them here against their 
wills. They have done us no wrong. We have brought the evil upon 
ourselves. Shall we then delay to do justice because it will be attended 
by deserved punishment, and yet pretend to be lovers of righteousness ? 

Slavery is not merely an evil that we must remedy some time ; but it 
is an evil that we are guilty of increasing every day until we do remedy 
it. While we delay, we are not like the band of robbers who have 
repented of their course and said, We will cease to do evil and restore to 
every man what we have taken from him, by and by, as it may suit our 
convenience ; but we are like the band who resolve to go on to rob and 
plunder until they have enough, and can spare enough to make restitu- 
tion. For, even now, while we are deliberating, we are adding to the 
evil. There is no standing upon neutral ground ; no, not so much as 
long enough to decide what to do. We not only hold those in slavery 
who are now enslaved, but we reduce eight or nine freemen to slavery every 
hour in the day. Every day, we part husbands and wives ; parents and 
children ; brothers and sisters. Do not say that the Africans do not feel 
this evil, for they are remarkable for the strength of their personal attach- 
ments. The husband sees his wife, the parent his children, taken and 
carried, they know not where — and sold, they know not to whom. They 
only know that bonds, and stripes, and servitude await them till death 
comes to their relief So deeply do they feel this separation, that they 
often commit suicide rather than endure it. Yet, probably not less than 
an hundred such separations occur every day ; and that too by laws which 
every one of us, my hearers, have a voice in making or repealing? 

But we admit that there will be evils attending the emancipation of the 
slaves. They may come before emancipation takes place. Do we not 
see them around us now ? What else are the sufferings and blood of the 
martyrs to the cause of emancipation ? the mobs and riots that disturb 
and disgrace our country ? the dangers to which our public officers are 
exposed for a conscientious discharge of their duty ? What are these 
but the evils attendant upon emancipation ? There may also be evils 
consequent upon emancipation. It is hardly to be hoped that there will 
not be. But there have been none of the evils that were expected to follow 
the abolition of slavery, in Antigua, where the experiment has had its 



47 

fairest trial. I refer to Antigua, in particular, because we have more 
definite information concerning that island than any other of the West 

Indies, where slavery has been abolished. 

Two of our own citizens went to Antigua to examine into the success 
of the abolition experiment there. I extract the following statements 
from tiieir work. I do not know that its credibility or accuracy has ever 
been questioned. 

On the first day of August, 1834, there were thirty thousand slaves 
emancipated. It was an experiment of immediate emancipation. There 
had been no 'gradual preparation,' which we are sometimes told must 
precede emancipation, 'i'hey were all set free at once. They received 
the boon with religious rejoicing and devout thanksgiving. 1 give the 
following particulars concerning the experiment in Antigua. 

1. The liberated slaves have been perfectly peaceable, and manifested 
no disposition to revenge their former wrongs. 

2. They have been more industrious than they were before they were 
free; so much so, that it is found that they will do so much more work 
and do it so much better, that it is more profitable to hire them and pay 
them wages when they are free, than to own them and merely feed and 
clothe them. 

3. They are obedient to the laws and are easily governed by them ; 
and thereby they show, not only that it is safe to set them free, but that 
they are capable of governing themselves, 

4. There are schools for the freed slaves, (established on purpose for 
them, 1 believe,) and they manifest a disposition to learn, and improve 
their moral and intellectual character. 

5. They are far more moral than they were before they were free. 
They seem to take a pride in having neat dwellings, and quiet, comforta- 
ble homes. 

6. And finally, the planters who opposed abolition, just as we do, and 
on precisely the same ground, now confess their error, and recommend 
abolition as safe, expedient and profitable. 

The value of property has greatly increased. Men who dared not 
sleep, while they had slaves, without their doors barred and bolted, and 
arms by the side of their beds, now feel no necessity for these things. 
The negroes are as peaceable, industrious, and moral, as any citizens. 
They have mostly gone to work on the same plantations where they were 
held as slaves. In a very few cases, where the master had been very 
cruel, they refused to work for him and have gone to work somewhere 
else. 

Now there is no reason why emancipation should not succeed as well 
here as it did in Antigua. Many men, who certainly know, have said 
that there are some things here more favorable to a successful experi- 
ment of abolition than in the West Indies, and nothing that is less favor- 
able than it was there. 

But we admit that there will be evils — inconveniences — attending the 
abolition of slavery. We dare not hope for the contrary. But it seems 
to me that every objection to immediate emancipation, arising from a 
consideration of its attendant inconveniences, betrays a great want of 
faith in God, certainly much greater than we should expect to find in any 
christian country. It betrays a great distrust of God's overruling Prov- 



48 

idence, or a very low and inefficient sense of justice in people, to choose 
sin rather than rigliteousness through a fear of the consequences of do- 
ing right. 

Is it not a fundamental axiom in justice that the punishment of crime 
shall be greater than the profits of crime and the evils attendant upon 
doing right ? If the punishment for horse-stealing were only a fortnight's 
imprisonment to hard labor, horse-stealing would be a pretty good busi- 
ness. One could hardly make money so fast in any other way. But then 
the law that assigned such a punishment to such a crime would be un- 
wise and unjust. It is the object of punishment to prevent crime ; there- 
fore the punishment must be greater than all the inducements to crime ; 
otherwise they are of none etiect. They will not prevent crime and 
restore justice. Human minds may not presume to fathom the depths 
of divine justice ; but then we may be assured, that, if there be a God of 
justice in the heavens, the punishment for continuing slavery must be 
greater than to counterbalance the profits of slavery, and the evils of im- 
mediate emancipation. This I should consider a sufficient answer to every 
objection that can be brought against immediate emancipation. Were 
the moral sentiment of the people so high as to enable them to under- 
stand clearly the principles of justice and right, and consequently to make 
them feel willing to obey its dictates, even when they could not see, from 
a calculation of the consequences, that it would be safe and profitable so 
to do, there could be no objection to immediate emancipation, arising 
from a consideration of its evils, sufficient to clog the mind for one mo- 
ment in coming to a decision as to what cour.^e to take. But the moral 
sentiment — the sense of justice in the majority — is not high enough to 
give them this faith. I will therefore speak of a few of the objections to 
immediate emancipation. 

1. It is said that emancipation would be infringing upon the slave- 
holder's right to property, one of man's most sacred rights. According 
to the slave laws, the slave is the property of the master. This is a legal 
question and should be met upon legal grounds. How then stands the 
slave-holder's right to property in the slave. The man who has made a 
slave of a freeman has just the same right to property in the slave that 
the thief has in the horse he has stolen, and no more. The master has 
stolen the freeman and made him a slave. Freedom is every man's birth- 
right, therefore every slave is stolen property ; and because the thieves, 
the man-stealers, say that what they have stolen is their property, is it 
therefore their property ? The laws decide not. The man who has 
bought a slave or received him as a present or inherited him, has no more 
right to property in that slave than the man who has bought the stolen 
horse of the thief has in the horse. The thief did not own the horse and 
therefore could not sell him, and the buyer could obtain no right to prop- 
erty in him by the bargain. Again, we have seen that the constitution of 
the United States does not consider slaves as property, and therefore the 
statute laws of the slave-holding states are unconstitutional. It is of no 
consequence that they declare the slaves property ; a greater than they 
says, slaves are not property. 

Here, then, the slave-holder has no legal right to property in the slave. 
Much less can he have a moral right. There is probably no slave-holder 
whose slaves have not earned him more than they cost him. They have 



49 

more than earnt their freedom. But supposing they had not ; supposing 
that emancipation would be taking away the master's property, had not 
men better be poor, than be rich when they must be rich by sin and ra- 
pacity ? Shall men steal and rob and enslave, rather than be poor ? Is 
God dead that ye will go on to rob and plunder and enslave ? Is the arm 
of almighty justice withered that ye will dare its veno-eance? 

Man cannot be owned. You may claim the sun, moon and stars, if 
you will ; but do not pretend to own your fellow-man. The sun, moon 
and stars shine but for him. They shall one day sink to everlasting night 
and be no more ; but the man thou claimest for thine, shall be a son of 
God, an angel to shine like a star in the firmament when earth and crea- 
ted things shall have sunk back to nothingness, from whence they came. 
Yes ; the man you claim and whip and tread upon, shall one day be an 
angel of light, and serve the Most High through the endless ages of eter- 
nity ; and think, O slave-holder ! how wilt thou feel to stand by his side 
in the presence of thy God and his God, thy Father and his Father, and 
see him, it may be, more honored than thou thyself! 

2. It is said that the slave, if freed, will be immoral and vicious ; that 
they are not capable of taking care of themselves. The success of the 
West India experiment is a sufficient answer to this. The slaves there, 
instead of becoming more immoral, have become more moral and vir- 
tuous. They have also shown that they can take care of themselves ; 
that they are capable of being governed by the laws. The plea that it is 
better for the slaves to remain as they are, in any of its forms, is false. 
It is suggested by no desire for the slaves' good. What would a parent 
say if one of his children, to whom he had given no authority over the 
rest, should beat and bind them, and compel them to leave the work 
that the parent had set them about and do his ? and then should offer as 
an excuse that it was better for them, he had done it for their good ? 
Would this be considered a good excuse ? Would any parent receive it 
as a sufficient excuse ? Will God ? 

3. Again, it is said that if the slaves are freed, we shall be overrun 
with them here at the north. But suppose we are; had we not rather be 
overrun with negroes, than with the judgments of almighty God ? Had 
we not better do right and commit ourselves in our innocence into the 
hands of him who loveth righteousness, than to dare his vengeance by 
continuing to insult and rebel against his overruling majesty ? 

But the fear of being overrun with slaves is a groundless fear. At 
least there is no more, nor in fact so much, ground, to fear being over-- 
run with them if they are emancipated as there is if they are not. The 
slave-holding territory must sometime become full of slaves. What will 
the masters then do ? They cannot export them ; they will send the 
old, the infirm, the indolent and the vicious, to us in the free states, 
and we must receive them. In that case we shall have the worst part, 
the very offscouring of the slave population ; bitt if they are freed we 
stand an even chance to get the best of them. 

There are many and weighty reasons for believing that the negroes 
when freed will remain at the south. They are there, and their attach- 
ment to their native soil is uncommonly strong. The climate suits 
them far better than the colder climates of the northern states. The 



50 

masters, who now own them as slaves, will need to employ them as 
laborers to do the same work that they now do. When we consider 
all these things we see but very little reason to fear that the north will 
be overrun with negroes, if they should be freed. But if there were 
ever so much reason to fear that the blacks would flock to the northern 
states, as thick as bees to the hive, would it not be better to have it so 
than to keep them in bondage ? Will you shut a man up in a prison, 
because his appearance, the appearance that God has given him, is not 
grateful to your eyes ? Will you murder a man, to get him out of 
your way ? You had better do so than to keep him in hopeless slavery. 
No, we had better have them so thick around us that the day should 
be dark with their sable visages, than to keep them as they are. 

But I will enumerate no more objections. It is not worth our while 
to stop pleading with every man we may find by the way, especially 
if we see, as we but too often do see, that his opinions are disposed of. 
He can no more convey himself to our ranks, than the slave on the 
southern plantations. His opinions are sold, or mortgaged, to party, to 
avarice, or something else, so that he has but a show of possessing 
them. This, I say, is the case with many ; am I uncharitable when 
I say, with all, who urge objections like those I have now been con- 
sidering ? But the day of emancipation hastens on. It comes moved 
by an almighty hand. Do not oppose the abolitionists, if you will 
not help them. Do not charge them with the evils of emancipation, 
be they what they may. They are but an instrument in the hand of 
God. The evils attendant upon their course are to be charged upon 
the sin against which they preach, the disease they would cure. You 
may cry peace, peace, but there is no peace for the wicked. You may 
say peace, be still, to the abolitionists, but if they should hold their 
peace the very stones would cry out, for God will be heard. You may 
say peace, peace, but there is no peace for the heart-broken, chain- 
galled sons of God, whom you hold in bondage. You may cry peace, 
to the volcano, to the whirlwind and the hurricane ; you may command 
silence to the muttering thunder, the rumbling earthquake, and the fury 
of foaming ocean's rage, but O ! do not presume to say ' peace,' be 
still, to the God of heaven, for the retributions of almighty justice will 
not keep peace while man doth wrong. 

I have thus accomplished the work I proposed. I have endeavored 
to give an account of the origin, history and changes of human slavery, 
and to stale especially the number and condition of the slaves in this 
country, and the means we may use for their release. We have seen 
that here, in this country, where the citizens are the freest of any on 
earth, the slaves are in the worst and most hopeless slavery. " Among 
the ancient nations their great rights of property and personal im- 
munity, were with greater or less fullness recognized and protected. 
Our own slave-holders totally deny them. The Athenians and Romans 
oppressed with an iron heel ; they insulted and wronged humanity, but 
that great and notable principle which annihilates it, and pronounces 
the slave a thing only, is altogether the discovery of men of a christian 
and democratic country." This is carrying things farther than hu- 



51 

manity will bear long, and affords a good ground to hope that slavery 
will soon be among the things that are passed. 

I have also endeavored to point out the ways in which we may exert 
an influence upon the subject. Slavery is a political evil. It is sapping 
the very foundations of our republic. It is a practical contradiction of 
our fundamental axiom, that all men are born free and E^uAyP^ 
Therefore, as citizens, we are called upon to do away this great na- 
tional evil. By our love of our country and its free institutions, we are 
called upon to free it from this corrupting gangrene, before which 
every thing pure, liberal and democratic, writhes and dies out ; we are 
called upon to cut off this diseased limb, lest the disease infect the 
whole system, and the hopes of the world be blasted in our expiring 
republic. Slavery is an injustice, a sin against the laws of God. 
Therefore, as Christians and preachers of righteousness, we are called 
upon to raise our voice against this daring outrage of our Maker's laws. 
As we believe in a God who will reward the righteous and punish the 
wicked, we must exert an influence to save our country from that sin 
that is a reproach to any people, and which most assuredly will call 
down upon us severe judgments. As believers in the immortality of 
the human soul, we are called upon to secure to those to whom the 
' lamp of life' is denied, the means of preparing for that immortality. 
The sufferers are our fellow men, our brethren ; and therefore, as 
philanthropists, we are called upon to bind up their broken hearts, to 
alleviate their woes, and pour the balm of consolation into their wounds. 
In whatever light we regard it, there seems to come a long, loud cry 
for help. God. in his providence, seems to say, ' son, go work to-day 
in this my vineyard ; dig up the noxious weed of human slavery.' Let 
us not be disobedient to the call. Let us be up and a doing, for the 
night of death comes, in which no man can work. Put away your 
hesitating doubts. Rise to action. Take the first step, and the second 
will then become plain. Rise, and let action convert your doubts into 
belief or certainty. The work is arduous. The struggle will be long. 
It will call forth all your best thoughts and energies — but it will thereby 
make you wiser, better and holier beings. By doing righteously, we 
grow in righteousness and earn our place in that mansion which Jesus 
has gone before us to prepare. 







j"^^ 
^ ^ 



v*^^ 




















V*^ 










%^^^*\^'^ "V'^^^'V^ 'V*^'^'\o'^ -^ -— 











•,c^SX^^*_ o 



't 

(k.^ 








.4-^ 









lV 



:^ «?^ 



(.T 



•- %.** :'M(i'' %-/ .*.^i^*v **-^** --if^-^ii^-. *- 




^*o* 



















47 .•*'•♦ "^ 









o^^^>*' ^' 'V*-v?ro\^'«'' 






V 




^^'\ 







WERT II J o 

BOOKBINDfNC H /?■ "^ 



m 










